7^ 


ONE  BRAVER  THING 


ONE  BRAVER 
THING 

("THE  DOP   DOCTOR") 
By  RICHARD  DEHAN 


A.  L.    BURT  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


Copyright.  1910.  by 
DUFFIELD  &  COMPANY 


ONE  BRAVER  THING 


2135317 


"/  have  done  one  braver  thing 
Than  all  the  'worthies  did; 
And  yet  a  braver  thence  doth  spring^ 
Which  is,  to  keep  that  hid" 

— Donne 


One  Braver  Thing 


UPON  a  day  in  August,  near  the  close  of  the  long,  brilliant 
South  African  winter,  when  the  old  Vierkleur  waved  over 
the  Transvaal,  and  what  is  now  the  Orange  River  Colony- 
was  the  Orange  Free  State,  with  the  Dutch  canton  still' 
showing  on  the  staff-head  corner  of  its  tribarred  flag,  two 
large,  heavily-laden  waggons  rolled  over  the  grass  veld,  only 
now  thinking  about  changing  from  yellow  into  green.  Many- 
years  previously  the  wheels  of  the  old  voortrekkers  had  passed! 
that  way,  bringing  from  Cape  Colony,  with  the  household 
gods,  goods  and  chattels,  language  and  customs  of  the  Dutch, 
the  slips  of  the  pomegranate  and  peach  and  orange  trees,  whose 
abundant  blossoming  dressed  the  orchards  of  the  farms  tucked 
away  here  and  there  in  the  lap  of  the  veld,  with  bridal  white 
and  pink,  and  hung  their  girdling  pomegranate  hedges  with 
stars  of  ruby  red.  But  days  and  days,  and  nights  and  nights 
of  billowing,  spreading,  lonely  sky-arched  veld  intervened  be- 
tween each  homestead. 

The  flat-topped  hills  were  draped  and  folded  in  the  opal 
haze  of  distance;  the  sky  was  perfect  turquoise;  the  pinkish 
kopjes  were  beginning  to  be  newly  clothed  with  the  young 
pale  green  bush.  To  the  south  there  was  a  veld  fire  leaping 
and  dancing,  with  swirling  columns  of  white  smoke  edged 
with  flame.  But  it  was  many  miles  away,  and  the  north-west 
wind  blew  strongly,  driving  some  puffs  of  gold  cloud  before 
it.  Doubtless  there  would  be  rain  ere  long.  There  had  been 
rain  already  in  the  foremost  waggon,  not  from  the  clouds,  but 
from  human  eyes. 

The  broad  wheels  crashed  on,  rolling  over  the  yellow  grass 
and  the  dry  bushes.  Lizards  and  other  creeping  creatures 
scuttled  across  their  wride  tracks.  The  patient  oxen  toiled 
under  the  yoke,  their  dappled  nostrils  widespread,  their  great 
dewy  eyes  strained  and  dim  with  weariness.  They  dumbly 
wondered  why  they  must  labour  in  the  daytime  when  all  night 
long  they  had  travelled  without  rest.  The  glorious  sunrise 
had  flamed  in  crimson  and  gold  behind  the  eastern  ranges  full 


2  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

five  hours  before.  They  were  weary  to  death,  and  no  dorp 
or  farm  was  yet  in  sight.  The  Cape  boys  who  tramped,  each 
leading  a  fore-ox  by  the  green  rein  bound  about  the  creature's 
wide  horns,  had  no  energy  left  even  to  swear  at  their  beasts. 

The  Boer  driver  was  weaned  like  the  ox  team  and  the 
Kaffirs.  His  bestial  face  was  drawn,  and  his  eyes  were  red- 
rimmed  for  lack  of  sleep.  The  long  whip,  with  the  fourteen- 
foot  stock  and  the  lash  of  twenty-three  feet,  had  not  smacked 
for  a  long  time;  the  sjambok  had  not  been  used  upon  the  long- 
suffering  wheelers.  Huddled  up  in  his  ill-fitting  clothes  of  tan 
cord,  he  sat  on  the  waggon-box  and  slept,  his  head  nodding, 
his  elbows  on  his  knees.  He  was  dreaming  of  the  bad  Cape 
brandy  that  had  been  in  the  bottle,  and  would  be,  with  luck, 
again,  when  the  waggon  reached  a  tavern  or  a  store. 

A  Kaffir  drove  the  second  waggon.  It  held  stores  and  goods 
in  bales,  and  some  trunks  and  other  baggage  belonging  to  the 
Englishman,  for  you  would  have  set  down  the  tall,  thin, 
high-featured,  reddish-bearded,  soft-speaking  man  who  owned 
the  waggons  as  English,  even  though  he  had  called  himself 
by  a  Dutch  name.  The  child  of  three  years  was  his.  And 
his  had  been  the  dead  body  of  the  woman  lying  on  the  waggon- 
bed,  covered  with  a  new  white  sheet,  with  a  stillborn  boy  baby 
lying  on  her  breast. 

For  this  the  man  who  had  loved  and  taken  her,  and  made 
her  his,  had  wept  such  bitter,  scalding  tears.  For  this  his  dead 
love,  with  Love's  blighted  bud  of  fruit  upon  her  bosom,  had 
given  up  her  world,  her  friends,  her  family — her  husband,  first 
and  last  of  all.  They  had  played  the  straight  game,  and  gone 
away  openly  together,  to  the  immense  scandal  of  Society  that  is 
so  willing  to  wink  at  things  done  cleverly  under  the  rose. 
They  were  to  be  married  the  instant  the  injured  husband  ob- 
tained his  decree  nisi.  Her  Church  sanctioned  the  remarriage 
of  the  divorced  if  his  did  not,  and  her  Church  should  thence- 
forth be  his.  But  there  was  no  decree  nisi,  her  husband  pos- 
sessing a  legal  heir  by  a  previous  wife,  and  being  secretly 
alarmed  lest  one  of  his  mistresses  should  marry  him  were  he 
once  more  free.  She  was  a  very  determined  woman.  Besides, 
in  a  cold  way  it  gave  him  pleasure  to  think  of  that  purpose 
foiled.  He  soon  knew  that  his  wife's  lover  had  sold  his  com- 
mission in  the  Army,  and  he  learned,  even,  through  a  com- 
munication forwarded  through  a  London  firm  of  solicitors, 
that  although  he  had  chosen  to  ignore  a  certain  appointment 
offered  upon  the  opposite  side  of  the  Channel,  the  other 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  3 

man  would  merely  consider  it  deferred  until  a  suitable  oppor- 
tunity should  occur.  Meanwhile  the  writer  was  travelling  in 
South  Africa,  not  alone. 

Never  to  be  alone  again,  she  had  promised  him  that  not 
quite  four  years  ago.  And  to-day  he  sat  on  a  box  beside  the 
waggon-bed  where  she  lay  dead  with  her  dead  boy,  and  the 
only  thing  left  to  him  that  had  the  dear  living  fragrance  and 
sweet  warmth  of  her  slept  smiling  on  his  knees.  The  long  fine 
silky  beard  that  he  had  grown  swept  the  soft  rose-flushed  cheek 
of  the  little  creature,  and  mingled  with  her  yellow  curls. 
Within  the  last  forty  hours — hours  packed  with  the  anguish 
of  a  lifetime  for  him — there  were  sprinklings  of  white  upon 
his  high  temples,  where  the  hair  had  grown  thin  under  the 
pressure  of  the  Hussar's  furred  busby,  the  khaki-covered 
helmet  of  foreign  service,  or  the  forage-cap,  before  these  had 
given  place  to  the  Colonial  smasher  of  felt,  and  the  silky  brown 
beard  had  in  it  wide,  rugged  streaks  of  grey.  He  had  wor- 
shipped the  woman  who  had  given  up  all  for  him;  they  had 
lived  only  for,  and  in,  one  another  during  four  wonderful 
years.  Hardly  a  passing  twinge  of  regret,  never  a  scorpion 
sting  of  remorse,  spoiled  their  union. 

But  they  never  stayed  long  in  any  town  or  even  in  any 
village.  Some  sound  or  shape  from  the  old  unforgotten  world 
beyond  the  barrier,  some  English  voice  that  had  the  indefinable 
tone  and  accent  of  high  breeding,  some  figure  of  Englishman 
or  Englishwoman  whose  rough,  careless  clothing  had  the  un- 
mistakable cut  of  Bond  Street,  some  face  recognized  under 
the  grey  felt  or  the  white  panama,  would  spur  them  to  the 
desire  of  leaving  it  behind  them.  Then  the  valises  would  be 
repacked,  the  waggons  would  be  hastily  inspanned,  and  their 
owners  would  start  again  upon  that  never-ending  journey  in 
search  of  something  that  she  was  to  be  the  first  to  find. 

At  last,  when  the  sun  was  high  and  the  worn-out  beasts  were 
almost  sinking,  a  group  of  low  buildings  came  in  sight  a  few 
miles  away  beyond  a  kloof  edged  with  a  few  poplar-like  trees 
and  the  Kameelthorn.  A  square,  one-story  house  of  corru- 
gated iron,  with  a  mud-walled  hovel  or  two  near  it,  had  a 
sprawling  painted  board  across  its  front,  signifying  that  the 
place  was  the  Free  State  Hotel.  Behind  it  were  an  orchard 
and  some  fields  under  rude  cultivation,  and  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
to  the  north  were  the  native  kraals. 

At  the  sight  the  Boer  shook  himself  fully  awake,  and  sent 
the  long  lash  cracking  over  the  thin,  sweat-drenched  backs  of 


4  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

the  ox-team.  They  laboured  with  desperation  at  the  yoke, 
«md  the  waggon  rumbled  on. 

The  Englishman,  hidden  with  his  sorrow  under  the  canvas 
waggon-tilt,  roused  himself  at  the  accelerated  motion.  He 
rose,  and,  holding  the  sleeping  child  upon  one  arm,  pushed 
back  the  front  flap  and  looked  out.  He  spoke  to  the  taciturn 
driver,  who  shook  his  head.  How  did  he,  Smoots  Beste,  know 
whether  a  minister  of  the  Church  of  England,  or  even  a  Dutch 
predikant,  was  to  be  found  at  the  place  beyond  ?  All  he  hoped 
for  was  that  he  would  be  able  to  buy  there  tobacco  and  brandy 
cheap,  and  sleep  drunken,  to  wake  and  drink  again. 

The  waggon  halted  on  the  brink  of  the  kloof.  Little  birds 
of  gay  and  brilliant  piumage,  'blue  and  crimson  and  emerald- 
green,  rose  in  flocks  from  the  bush  and  grasses  that  clothed  the 
sides  of  the  coomb ;  the  hollows  were  full  of  the  tree-fern ;  the 
grass  had  little  white  and  purple  flowers  in  it.  At  the  valley- 
bottom  a  little  river,  in  spate  from  the  recent  rains,  wimpled 
merrily  over  sandstone  boulders;  the  barbel  rose  at  flies. 
There  was  a  drift  lower  down.  It  was  all  the  goaded,  worn- 
out  oxen  could  do  to  stay  the  huge  creaking  waggons  down 
the  steep  bank,  and  drag  them  over  the  river-bed  of  sand  and 
boulders,  through  the  muddied,  churned-up  water  that  they 
were  dying  for,  yet  not  allowed  to  taste,  and  toil  with  them 
up  the  further  side. 

The  Englishman  was  not  cruel.  He  was  usually  humane 
and  merciful  to  man  and  beast,  but  just  now  he  was  deaf  and 
blind.  Beside  him  there  was  her  corpse,  beyond  him  was  her 
grave,  beyond  that  .  .  . 

Both  he  and  she  in  that  world  that  lay  beyond  the  barrier 
had  observed  the  outward  forms  of  Christianity.  They  had 
first  met  in  the  Park,  one  May  morning,  after  a  church  parade. 
They  sat  on  a  couple  of  green-painted  chairs  while  Society, 
conscious  of  the  ever-present  newspaper-reporter,  paraded  past 
[them  in  plumage  as  gorgeous  as  that  of  the  gay-coloured 
birds  that  flocked  among  the  tree-fern  or  rose  in  frightened 
clouds  as  the  waggons  crashed  by.  And  they  discussed — to- 
gether with  the  chances  of  the  runners  entered  for  the  coming 
Spring  Meeting  at  Newmarket,  and  the  merits  of  the  problem 
play,  and  the  newest  musical  comedy — the  Immortality  of  the 
Soul. 

She  wore  a  brown  velvet  gown  and  an  ostrich-feather  boa 
in  delicate  shades  of  cream  and  brown,  and  a  cavalier  hat  with 
sweeping  white  plumes.  Her  hair  was  the  colour  of  autumn 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  5 

leaves,  or  a  squirrel's  back  in  the  sunshine,  and  she  had  grey 
eyes  and  piquant,  irregular  features,  ears  like  shells,  and  a  deli- 
cate, softly-tinted  skin  undefiled  by  cosmetics.  She  thought  it 
wicked  to  doubt  that  one  waked  up  again  after  dying  Some- 
where— a  vague  Somewhere,  with  all  the  nice  people  of  one's 
set  about  one.  He  said  that  Agnosticism  and  all  that  kind  of 
thing  was  bad  form.  Men  who  had  religion  made  the  best 
soldiers.  Like  the  Presbyterian  Highlanders  of  the  Black 
Watch  and  the  "  Royal  Irish  "  Catholics — but,  of  course,  she 
knew  that.  And  she  said  yes,  she  knew;  meeting  his  admiring 
eyes  with  her  own,  that  were  so  grey  and  sweet  and  friendly, 
the  little  gloved  hand  that  held  the  ivory  and  gold-bound 
Church  Service  lying  in  her  lap.  He  longed  to  take  that  little 
white,  delicate  hand.  Later  on  he  took  it,  and  a  little  later 
the  heart  that  throbbed  in  its  pulses,  and  the  frail,  beautiful 
body  out  of  which  the  something  that  had  been  she  had  gone 
with  a  brief  gasping  struggle  and  a  long  shuddering  sigh.  .  .  . 

He  kept  the  beloved  husk  and  shell  of  her  steady  on  the 
waggon-bed  with  one  arm  thrown  over  it,  and  held  the  awak- 
ened, fretting  child  against  his  breast  with  the  other,  as  the 
sinking  oxen  floundered  up  the  farther  side  of  the  kloof. 
Amidst  the  shouting  and  cursing  of  the  native  voor-loopers  and 
the  Boer  and  Kaffir  drivers,  the  rain  of  blows  on  tortured, 
struggling  bodies,  and  the  creaking  of  the  teak-built  waggon- 
frames,  he  only  heard  her  weakly  asking  to  be  buried  properly 
in  some  churchyard,  or  cemetery,  with  a  clergyman  to  read 
the  Service  for  the  Dead. 

Before  his  field-glass  showed  him  the  sprawling  hotel-sign 
he  had  hoped  that  the  buildings  in  sight  might  prove  to  mask 
the  outskirts  of  an  Afrikander  hamlet  with  an  English  mis- 
sionary station,  or  a  Dutch  settlement  important  enough  to 
own  a  corrugated  iron  Dopper  church  and  an  oak-scrub-hedged 
or  boulder-dyked  graveyard,  in  charge  of  a  pastor  whose  loath- 
ing of  the  Briton  should  yield  to  the  mollifying  of  poured-out 
gold. 

But  Fate  had  brought  him  to  this  lonely  veld  tavern.  He 
watched  it  growing  into  ugly,  sordid  shape  as  the  waggon  drew 
nearer.  To  this  horrible  place,  miscalled  the  Free  State  Hotel 
• — a  mere  jumble  of  corrugated-iron  buildings,  wattle  and  mud- 
walled  stables  for  horses,  and  a  barbed-wire  waggon  enclosure 
— he  had  brought  his  beloved  at  the  end  of  their  last  journey 
together.  He  shuddered  at  the  thought. 

The  waggon  halted  and  outspanned  before  the  tavern.     The 


6  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

drivers  went  in  to  get  drink,  and  Bough,  the  man  who  kept  it, 
leaving  the  women  to  serve  them,  came  out.  He  ordinarily 
gave  himself  out  as  an  Afrikander.  You  see  in  him  a  whisk- 
ered, dark-complexioned,  good-looking  man  of  twenty-six,  but 
looking  older,  whose  regard  was  either  insolent  or  cringing, 
according  to  circumstances,  and  whose  smile  was  an  evil  leer. 
The  owner  of  the  waggons  stood  waiting  near  the  closed-up 
foremost  one,  the  yellow-haired  child  on  his  arm.  He  looked 
keenly  at  the  landlord,  Bough,  and  the  man's  hand  went  in- 
voluntarily up  in  the  salute,  to  its  owner's  secret  rage.  Did 
he  want  every  English  officer  to  recognize  him  as  an  old  de- 
serter from  the  Cape  Mounted  Police?  Not  he — and  yet  the 
cursed  habit  stuck.  But  he  looked  the  stranger  squarely  in  the 
face  with  that  frank  look  that  marked  such  depth  of  will,  and 
quelled  him  with  the  simple  manner  that  concealed  so  much, 
and  the  English  officer  lifted  his  left  hand,  as  though  it  raised 
a  sword,  and  began  to  talk.  Presently  Bough  called  someone, 
and  a  smart,  slatternly  young  woman  came  out  and  carried  the 
child,  who  leaned  away  from  her  rouged  face,  resisting,  into 
the  house. 

The  English  traveller  would  take  no  refreshment.  He 
needed  nothing  but  to  know  of  a  graveyard  and  men  to  dig 
a  grave,  and  a  minister  or  priest  to  read  the  Burial  Service. 
He  would  pay  all  that  was  asked.  He  learned  that  the  near- 
est village-town  might  be  reached  in  five  days'  trek  across  the 
veld,  and  that  the  landlord  did  not  know  whether  it  had  a 
pastor  or  not. 

Five  days'  trek!  He  waved  the  twinkling-eyed,  curious 
landlord  back,  and  went  up  into  the  waggon,  drawing  the 
door-flaps  close.  He  faced  the  truth  in  there,  and  realized  with 
a  throe  of  mortal  anguish  that  the  burial  must  be  soon — very 
soon.  To  prison  what  remained  of  her  in  a  hastily  knocked- 
together  coffin,  and  drag  it  over  the  veld,  looking  for  some 
plot  of  consecrated  earth  to  put  it  in,  was  desecration,  horror. 
He  would  bury  her,  and  fetch  the  minister  or  clergyman  or 
priest  to  read  prayers.  Later,  if  it  cost  him  all  he  had,  the 
spot  should  be  consecrated  for  Christian  burial.  He  came 
forth  from  the  waggon  and  held  parley  with  the  landlord  of 
the  tavern.  There  was  a  wire-fenced  patch  of  sandy  red 
earth  a  hundred  yards  from  the  house,  a  patch  wherein  the 
white  woman  who  was  mistress  at  the  tavern  had  tried  to  grow 
a  few  common  English  flower-seeds  out  of  a  gaily-covered 
packet  left  by  a  drummer  who  had  passed  that  way.  She  had 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  7 

grown  tired  of  the  trouble  of  watering  and  tending  them,  so 
that  some  of  them  had  withered,  and  the  lean  fowls  had  flown 
over  the  fence  and  scratched  the  rest  up. 

That  patch  of  sandy  earth  brought  a  handsome  price,  paid 
down  in  good  English  sovereigns — the  coinage  that  is  welcome 
in  every  corner  of  the  earth,  save  at  the  uttermost  habitable 
limits  of  the  Southern  Arctic,  where  gin,  tobacco,  and  coffee 
are  more  willingly  taken  in  exchange  for  goods  or  souls. 

The  Englishman  was  business-like.  He  fetched  pen  and 
ink  and  paper  out  of  that  jealously  closed-up  waggon,  drew  up 
the  deed,  and  had  it  witnessed  by  the  Boer  driver  and  the  white 
woman  at  the  hotel. 

He  had  made  up  his  mind.  He  would  bury  her,  since  it 
must  be,  and  then  fetch  the  clergyman.  Knowing  him  on  the 
road,  or  returning  to  the  fulfilment  of  his  promise,  she  would 
not  mind  lying  there  unblessed  and  waiting  for  ten  lonely  days 
and  nights.  He  whispered  in  her  deaf  ears  how  it  was  going 
to  be,  and  that  she  could  not  doubt  him.  He  swore — not  dream- 
ing how  soon  he  should  keep  the  vow — to  visit  the  grave  often, 
often,  with  his  child  and  hers,  and  to  lie  there  beside  her  when 
kind  Death  should  call  him  too. 

Then  he  left  her  for  a  moment,  and  sent  for  the  Kaffir  driver 
and  the  Boer  to  come,  and,  with  him,  dig  her  grave.  .  .  . 

But  Smoots  Beste  was  already  in  hog-paradise,  lying  grunt- 
ing on  a  bench  in  the  bar,  and  the  Kaffir  had  gone  to  the  native 
kraals.  The  English  officer  looked  at  the  rowdy  landlord  and 
the  loafing  men  about  the  tavern,  and  made  up  his  mind.  No 
hands  other  than  his  own  should  prepare  a  last  bed  for  her, 
his  dearest. 

So,  all  through  the  remainder  of  the  long  day,  streaming 
and  drenched  with  perspiration,  which  the  cold  wind  dried 
upon  him,  he  wrought  at  a  grave  for  her  with  spade  and  pick. 

It  should  be  deep,  because  of  the  wild-cat  and  the  hungry. 
Kaffir  dogs.  It  should  be  wide,  to  leave  room  for  him.  The 
ground  was  hard,  with  boulders  of  ironstone  embedded  in  it. 
What  did  that  matter?  All  the  day  through,  and  all  through 
the  night  of  wind-driven  mists  and  faint  moonlight,  he  wrought 
like  a  giant  possessed,  whilst  his  child,  lulled  with  the  condensed 
milk  and  water,  in  which  biscuits  had  been  sopped,  lay  sleeping 
in  the  tavern  upon  a  little  iron  bed. 

He  had  had  the  waggon  brought  close  up  to  the  wired  en- 
closure. All  the  time  he  worked  he  kept  a  watch  upon  it. 


8  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

Did  claws  scrape  the  wide  wheels  or  scurrying  feet  patter  across 
the  shadows,  he  left  off  work  until  the  voracious  creatures  of 
the  night  were  driven  away. 

The  pale  dawn  came,  and  the  east  showed  a  lake  of  yel- 
low. .  .  .  When  the  great  South  African  sun  rose  and  flooded 
the  veld  with  miraculous  liquid  ambers  and  flaming,  melted 
rubies,  the  deep,  wide  grave  at  last  was  done. 

He  climbed  out  of  it  by  the  waggon  ladder,  struggling  under 
the  weight  of  the  last  great  basketful  of  stones  and  sandy  earth. 
He  dumped  that  down  by  the  graveside,  and  went  to  the  wag- 
gon and  removed  all  stains  of  toil,  and  then  set  about  making 
the  last  toilet  of  the  beautiful  woman  who  had  so  loved  that 
everything  that  touched  her  should  be  pure,  and  dainty,  and 
sweet. 

He  had  dressed  her  silken,  plentiful,  golden-brown  hair  many 
times,  for  the  sheer  love  of  its  loveliness.  With  what  care  he 
combed  and  brushed  and  arranged  the  perfumed  locks!  He  laid 
reverent  kisses  on  the  sealed  eyelids  that  his  own  hands  had 
closed  for  ever;  he  whispered  words  of  passionate  love,  vows  of 
undying  gratitude  and  remembrance,  in  the  shell-like  ears.  He 
bathed  with  fresh  wrater  and  reclad  in  fragrant  linen  the  ex- 
quisite body,  upon  which  faint  discolouring  patches  already 
heralded  the  inevitable  end.  When  he  had  done,  he  swathed 
her  in  a  sheet,  and  fetched  a  bolt  of  new  white  canvas  from 
the  store-waggon,  and  lined  the  grave  with  that. 

And  then  he  placed  a  narrow  mattress  in  it,  and  freshly 
covered  pillows,  and  brought  her  from  the  waggon,  and  to  the 
grave,  and  carried  her  down  the  light  wooden  ladder,  and  laid 
her  in  her  last  earthly  home,  with  a  kiss  from  the  lips  that 
had  never  been  her  husband's.  It  was  so  cruel  to  think  of 
that.  It  was  so  hard  to  cover  up  the  cold,  sweet  face  again, 
but  he  did  it,  and  lapped  the  sheet  over  her  and  brought  the 
canvas  down.  Remained  now  to  fill  in  her  grave  and  fetch  the 
man  whose  mouth  should  speak  over  it  the  words  that  are  of 
God. 

But  first — fill  in  the  grave. 

The  cold  sweat  drenched  him  at  the  thought  of  heaping 
back  those  tons  of  earth  and  stone  above  her,  crushing  with  a 
frightful  wei'ght  of  inert  matter  the  bodily  beauty  that  he 
adored.  He  felt  as  though  her  soul  hovered  about  him,  wail- 
ing to  him  not  to  be  so  cruel,  tugging  at  his  garments  with, 
imploring,  impalpable  hands. 

The  thing  must  he  .done,  though,  before  the  sordid  life  stirred 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  9 

again  under  the  roof  of  the  tavern,  before  the  vulgar  faces, 
with  their  greedy,  prying  eyes,  should  be  there  to  snigger  and 
spy. 

He  loaded  a  great  basket  with  fine  gravelly  sand,  and  carried 
it  down  and  laid  it  on  her  by  handfuls.  What  were  his  livid, 
parched  lips  muttering?  Over  and  over,  only  this: 

"  Ashes  to  ashes,  dust  to  dust  .  .  ." 

Soon  the  white  swathed-up  form  was  hidden  with  the  sandy 
gravel.  That  was  a  terrible  pang.  It  wrenched  the  first 
groan  from  him,  but  he  worked  on. 

More  and  more  of  the  sandy  gravel,  but  for  security  the 
stones  must  lie  above.  Should  the  voracious  creatures  of  the 
night  come,  they  must  find  the  treasure  in  impregnable  security. 
That  thought  helped  him  to  lay  in  the  first,  and  the  second, 
and  then  greater  and  greater  stones.  He  was  spent  and  breath- 
less, but  still  he  laboured.  He  tottered,  and  at  times  the  tav- 
ern and  the  veld,  and  the  waggons  on  it,  and  the  flat-topped  dis- 
tant mountains  that  merged  in  the  horizon,  swung  round  him  in 
a  wild,  mad  dance.  Then  the  warm  salt  taste  of  blood  was 
in  his  mouth,  and  he  gasped  and  panted,  but  he  never  rested 
until  the  grave  was  filled  in. 

Then  he  built,  up  over  it  an  oblong  cairn  of  the  iron-stone 
boulders,  made  a  rude  temporary  cross  out  of  a  spare  waggon- 
pole,  working  quite  methodically  with  saw  and  hammer  and 
nails,  and  set  it  up,  under  the  curious  eyes  he  hated  so,  and 
wedged  it  fast  and  sure.  Then  he  knelt  down  stiffly,  and 
made,  with  rusty,  long  unpractised  fingers,  the  sacred  sign  upon 
his  face  and  breast.  He  heard  her  still,  asking  him  in  that 

nearly  extinguished  voice  of  hers,  to  pray  for  her. 

*  *  *  * 

"Dicky!  .  .  ." 

Ah!  the  tragedy  of  the  foolish  little  nickname,  faltered  byj 
stiffening  lips  upon  the  bed  of  death ! 

"  Catholics  pray  for  the  souls  of  dead  people,  don't  they?! 
Pray  for  mine  by-and-by.  It  will  comfort  me  to  know  you 
are  praying,  darling,  even  if  God  is  too  angry  with  us  to 
hear!" 

He  held  her  to  his  bursting  heart,  groaning. 

"  If  He  is  angry,  it  cannot  be  with  you.  The  sin  was  mine 
— all  mine.  He  must  know !  " 

Later  she  awakened  from  a  troubled  sleep  to  murmur: 

"  Richard,  I  dreamed  of  Bridget-Mary.  She  was  all  in 
black,  but  there  was  white  linen  about  her  face  and  neck, 


io  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

and  it  was  dabbled  dreadfully  with  blood."  The  weak,  slight 
body  shuddered  in  his  embrace.  "  She  said  our  wickedness  had 
brought  her  death,  but  that  she  would  plead  for  us  in  Heaven." 

"  She  is  not  dead,  my  beloved ;  I  heard  of  her  before  we 
left  Cape  Colony.  She  has  taken  the  veil.  She  is  well,  and 
will  be  happy  in  her  religion,  as  those  good  women  always 
are." 

"  I  was  not  one  of  those  good  women,  Richard " 

He  strained  her  to  him  in  silence.     She  panted  presently: 

"You  might  have  been  happy — with  her — if  I  had  never 
COffle  between  you." 

He  found  some  words  to  tell  her  that  these  things  were 
meant  to  be.  From  the  beginning  .  .  . 

"  Was  it  meant  that  I  should  die  on  these  wild,  wide, 
desolate  plains,  and  leave  you,  Richard  ?  " 

He  cried  out  frantically  that  he  would  die  too,  and  follow 
her.  Her  dying  whisper  fluttered  at  his  lips: 

"  You  cannot !     Think !— the  child !  " 

He  had  forgotten  the  child,  and  now,  with  a  great  stabbing 
pang,  remembered  it.  She  asked  for  it,  and  he  brought  it,  and 
she  tried  to  kiss  it;  and  even  in  that  Death  foiled  her,  and  her 
head  fell  back  and  her  eyes  rolled  up,  and  she  died. 

He  remembered  all  this  as  he  tried  to  say  the  prayer,  without 
which  she  could  not  have  borne  to  have  him  leave  her. 

The  curious,  mocking  faces  crowded  at  the  tavern  door  to 
see  him  praying — a  strange,  haggard  scarecrow  kneeling  there 
in  the  face  of  day. 

But  he  was  not  the  kind  of  scarecrow  they  would  have 
dared  to  jeer  at  openly.  Too  rich,  with  all  that  money  in  the 
valise  in  the  locked-up  waggon-chest;  too  strong,  with  that 
sharp  hunting-knife,  the  Winchester  repeating-rifle,  and  the 
revolver  he  carried  at  his  hip. 

"  Our  Father   Who  art  in  Heaven.  .  .  /' 

He  knew,  the  man  who  repeated  the  words,  that  there  was 
no  One  beyond  the  burning  blue*  vault  of  ether  Who 
heard  .  .  .and  yet,  for  her  sake,  supposing,  after  all,  some 
great  Unseen  Ear  listened,  was  listening  even  now.  .  .  . 

"Hallowed  be  Thy  Name.     Thy  Kingdom  come.  .  .  /* 

And  if  it  came,  should  those  have  any  part  in  it  who  had 
lived  together  unwed  in  open  sin? 

"  Thy  Will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  Heaven.  .  .  ." 

The  words  stuck  in  his  dried  throat.  Be  done,  that  Will 
that  left  him  desolate_gnd  laid  her  awiay,  a  still  fair,  fast- 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  n 

corrupting  thing,  under  the  red  earth  and  the  great  ironstone 
boulders ! 

"  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread.  .  .  ." 

Her  love,  her  presence,  her  voice,  her  touch,  had  been  the 
daily  bread  of  life  to  him,  her  fellow-sinner.  Oh,  how  many 
base,  sordid,  loveless  marriages  had  not  that  illicit  bond  of 
theirs  put  to  shame!  And  yet  as  a  boy  he  had  learned  the 
Sixth  Commandment:  "Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery." 
Had  she  not  believed  all  along  that  the  price  of  such  sweet 
sinning  must  be  paid,  if  not  in  this  life,  then  in  the  life  here- 
after, and  could  it — could  it  be  that  her  soul  was  even  now 
writhing  in  fires  unquenchable,  whither  he,  who  would  have 
gladly  died  in  torment  to  save  her  from  outrage  or  death,  had 
thrust  her? 

"Forgive  us  our  trespasses.  .  .  ." 

O  Man  of  Sorrows,  pitying  Son  of  Mary,  before  whom  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  brought  the  woman  taken  in  adultery, 
forgive  her,  pardon  her!  If  a  Soul  must  writhe  in  those  eternal 
fires  they  preach  of,  in  justice  let  it  be  mine.  Thou  Who  didst 
pity  that  woman  of  old  time,  standing  white  and  shameful 
in  the  midst  of  the  evil,  jeering  crowd,  with  the  wicked  fingers 
pointing  at  her,  say  to  this  other  woman,  lifting  up  Thyself 
before  her  terrified,  desperate  soul,  confronted  with  the  awful 
mystery  that  lies  behind  the  Veil  .  .  . 

"  Neither  do  I  condemn  thee.  .  .    " 

And  do  with  me  what  Thou  wilt ! 

The  ragged,  wild-eyed  man  who  had  been  kneeling  rigid 
and  immovable  before  the  wrooden  symbol  reared  upon  the  new- 
raised  cairn  of  boulders  swayed  a  little.  His  head  fell  forward 
heavily  upon  his  breast.  His  eyes  closed  in  spite  of  his  desper- 
ate effort  to  shake  off  the  deadly,  sickening  collapse  of  will 
and  brain  and  body  that  was  mastering  him.  He  fell  sideways, 
and  lay  in  a  heap  upon  the  ground. 


II 

THEY  went  to  him,  and  took  up  and  carried  him  into  the 
tavern,  and  laid  him  down  upon  a  frowzy  bed  in  the  room 
where  the  child  lay  upon  the  iron-framed  cot. 

He  lay  there  groaning  in  the  fierce  clutches  of  rheumatic 
fever.  They  tended  him  in  a  rude  way.  A  valise  and  an 
iron-bound  leather  ladv's  trunk  had  been  brought  from  the 


12  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

waggon  by  his  orders,  and  set  in  the  room  where  he  was  in  his 
sight.  These  contained  her  clothes  and  jewels,  and  he  guarded 
them  jealously  even  in  delirium.  About  his  wasted  body  was 
buckled  a  heavy  money-belt.  Bough  could  feel  that  when  he 
helped  the  woman  of  the  tavern  to  lift  him.  He  winked  to 
her  pleasantly  across  the  bed.  But  the  time  was  not  ripe  yet. 
They  must  wait  awhile.  The  English  traveller  was  not  al- 
ways delirious.  There  were  intervals  of  consciousness,  and 
though  he  seemed  at  death's  door,  who  knew?  That  strong 
purpose  of  his  might  even  yet  lift  him  from  the  soiled  and  com- 
fortless bed,  and  send  him  on  the  trek  again.  Meanwhile  the 
oxen  were  hired  out  to  work  for  a  farmer  fifty  miles  away. 
That  was  called  sending  them  to  graze  and  gain  strength  for 
more  work ;  and  there  was  the  keep  of  two  Cape  boys,  and 
the  Kaffir  and  the  Boer  driver,  and  the  cost  of  nursing  and  sick 
man's  diet,  and  the  care  of  the  child.  A  heavy  bill  of  charges 
was  mounting  up  against  the  English  traveller.  Much  of 
what  the  belt  contained  would  honestly  be  Bough's. 

There  was  no  doctor  and  no  medicine  save  the  few  drugs 
the  sick  man  had  carried,  as  all  travellers  do.  The  milk  for 
which  he  asked  for  himself  and  the  child,  which  was  procured 
from  the  native  cattle-kraals  for  a  tikkie  a  pint,  and  for  which 
Bough  charged  at  the  price  of  champagne,  kept  him  alive. 
Broth  or  eggs  he  sickened  at  and  turned  from,  and,  indeed,  the 
one  was  greasy  and  salt,  the  others  of  appalling  mustiness.  He 
would  regularly  sw'allow  the  tabloids  of  quinine  or  lithia,  and 
fall  back  on  the  hard,  coarse  pillow,  exhausted  by  the  mere  ef- 
fort of  unscrewing  the  nickel-cap  of  the  little  phial,  and  tell 
himself  that  he  was  getting  stronger.  Sometimes  he  really 
was  so,  and  then  the  child  sat  on  his  wide  hollow  chest,  and 
played  with  the  beard  that  was  now  all  grey  and  unkempt  and 
matted,  until  some  word  in  her  baby  prattle,  some  look  of 
wondering  inquiry  in  the  innocent  eyes,  golden-hazel  and  black- 
lashed,  like  his  own,  that  were  almost  too  beautiful  to  be  a 
man's,  people  used  to  say,  like  the  weak,  passionate,  gentle 
mouth  under  the  heavy  moustache,  would  bring  back  all  the 
anguish  of  his  loss,  and  weaken  anew  that  torturing  voice  that 
accused  him  of  being  false  to  his  compact  with  the  dead.  Then 
he  would  call,  and  send  the  child  away,  borne  in  the  arms 
of  the  Hottentot  chambermaid  to  breathe  the  fresh  air  upon  the 
veld.  And,  left  alone,  he  would  draw  up  the  rough  sheets 
over  his  head,  with  gaunt  clutching  fingers,  and  weep,  though 
sometimes  no  tears  came  to  moisten  his  hangard,  staring  eyes. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  13 

One  night,  while  the  flat  gold  hunting-watch  ticked  above 
his  head  in  the  little  embroidered  chamois-leather  pouch  her 
hands  had  worked,  Knowledge  came  to  him  with  a  sudden  rigor 
of  the  muscles  of  the  wasted  body,  and  a  bursting  forth  from 
every  pore  of  the  dank,  dark-hued  sweat  of  coming  dissolu- 
tion. 

He  was  not  ever  going  to  get  well,  and  fetch  the  clergyman 
to  pray  over  and  bless  her  resting-place.  He  was  going  to 
die  and  lie  beside  her  there,  under  the  red  earth  topped  by  the 
boulder-cairn.  He  smiled.  What  an  easy  solution  of  the 
problem !  He  had  been  too  intent  upon  gratifying  her  last  de- 
sire to  entertain  for  a  moment  the  thought  of  suicide.  He  had 
always  held  self-destruction  as  the  last  resource  of  the  coward 
and  the  criminal,  and  besides  there  was  the  child. 

The  child!  .  .  . 

With  a  pang  of  dread  and  terror  unfelt  by  him  before  he 
raised  his  gaunt  head  with  an  effort  from  the  uneasy  pillow, 
and  looked  towards  where  she  lay,  with  staring,  haunted  eyes. 
The  window  was  open  a  little  way  at  the  top,  and  for  fear  of 
the  night-chill  his  fine  leopard-skin  kaross  had  been  spread  over 
her.  .  .  .  One  dimpled,  rounded,  bare  arm  lay  upon  the  soft 
dappled  fur,  the  babyish  fingers  curled  one  upon  the  other. 
Rosy  human  tendrils  that  should  never  twine  again  in  a 
mother's  hair.  Her  child,  her  daughter!  .  .  .  Born  of  her 
body,  sharing  her  nature  and  her  sex,  soon  to  be  orphaned. 
For  he  who  could  not  even  lift  himself  from  bed,  and  drag 
his  body  across  the  floor  to  cover  that  lovely  babyish  arm, 
would  soon  be  no  better  protector  than  the  restless  ghost  that 
tugged  at  his  heart  with  its  unseen  hands.  He  knew  now  why 
it  could  not  rest. 

What  would  become  of  the  child?  Another  fiery  scourge, 
wielded  by  the  Hand  Unseen,  bit  deep  into  his  shrinking  con- 
science, into  his  writhing  soul.  His  own  act  had  brought  this 
about.  Be  a  cur,  and  accuse  Destiny,  blame  Fate,  lay  the  onus 
upon  God,  as  so  many  defaulters  do — he  could  not.  He  lay 
looking  his  deed  in  the  foul  face  until  the  dawn  crept  up  the 
sky,  and  learning  how  it  may  be  that  the  sins  of  their  fathers 
are  visited  on  the  children. 

He  called  for  ink  and  paper  as  soon  as  the  house  was  awake, 
and  with  infinite  labour  and  many  pauses  to  recover  spent 
strength  and  breath,  for  he  was  greedy  of  life  now,  for  the 
reason  that  we  know — he  wrote  a  letter  home  to  England,  to 
one  who  was  the  head  of  his  House4  and  bore  a  great  old  name 


14  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

— so  great  a  name  that  those  who  spelled  it  out  upon  the  en- 
velope were  half  afraid  to  slip  the  heated  knife  under  the 
crested  seal.  But  Bough  did  it,  and  opened,  and  read. 

It  was  not  going  to  be  the  soft  snap  he  had  thought,  but  it 
would  be  good  enough.  Wires  might  be  pulled  from  Down- 
ing Street  that  would  set  the  Government  at  Cape  Town  work- 
ing to  trace  the  tall  thin  Englishman  who  had  travelled  up 
with  two  waggons  from  Cape  Colony  in  the  company  of  a  child 
and  the  woman  now  dead,  and  for  whose  sake  he  had  given 
up  those  almighty  swell  connections.  What  a  fool — what  a 
thundering,  juicy,  damned  fool  the  man  had  been!  whose  gaunt 
eyes  were  even  now  making  out  the  landfall  of  Kingdom  Come 
beyond  the  distant  mountain-ranges. 

The  letter  worried  Bough.  To  have  the  English  Govern- 
ment smelling  at  your  heels  is  no  joke.  Any  moment  the 
mastiff  may  grip,  and  then,  if  you  happen  to  be  an  ex-convict 
and  deserter  from  their  Colonial  Police,  and  if  you  have  one 
or  two  other  little  things  against  you  .  .  .  the  White  Slave 
traffic,  such  a  profitable  source  of  wealth  to  honest  speculators, 
suppose  you  had  had  to  get  a  speedy  move  on  you  from  Port 
Elizabeth,  and  maybe  somewhere  else,  all  along  of  that?  And 
that  other  even  more  profitable  business  of  gun-running  from 
the  English  ports  through  to  the  Transvaal.  By  men  like 
Bough  and  his  associates  vast  supplies  of  munitions  and  engines 
of  war  were  wormed  through.  The  machine-guns  in  carefully 
numbered  parts  came  in  cases  as  "  agricultural  implements," 
the  big  guns  travelled  in  the  boilers  of  locomotives,  the  empty 
cases  of  the  shells,  large  and  small,  were  packed  in  piano-cases, 
or  in  straw-filled  crates  as  "  hardware  " ;  the  black  powder  and 
the  cordite  and  the  lyddite  came  in  round  wooden  American 
cheese-boxes,  with  a  special  mark;  and  the  Mauser  cartridges 
were  soldered  in  tins  like  preserved  meat.  How  handsomely 
that  business  paid  only  Bough  and  his  merry  men,  and  Oom 
Paul  and  his  burghers  of  the  Volksraad,  knew. 

But  Her  Majesty's  Government,  bound  about  with  red-tape, 
hoodwinked  by  Dutch  Assistant-Commissioners  of  British  Colo- 
nies, and  deceived  by  traitorous  English  officials,  were  blind 
and  deaf  to  the  huge  traffic  in  arms  and  munitions.  Not  that 
there  were  no  warnings.  To  the  very  end  they  were  shouted  in 
deaf  ears. 

What  of  that  letter  sent  from  the  Resident  Commissioner's 
office  at  Gueldersdorp,  that  little  frontier  hamlet  on  the  north- 
east corner  of  British  Baraland,  September  4,  1899,  little  more 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  15 

than  a  month  before  the  war  broke  out,  the  war  that  was  to> 
leave  Britain  and  her  Colonies  bleeding  at  every  vein? 

The  Boers  were  in  laager  over  the  border.  A  desperate  ap- 
peal for  help  had  been  made  to  the  Powers  that  were,  and  the 
reply  received  to  the  now  historic  telegram,  through  the  Resi- 
dent Commissioner,  has  equally  become  a  matter  of  history. 

If  ever  a  book  shall  be  written  entitled  "  The  History  of 
Ignorance,"  that  is. 

"  All  that  was  possible  "  was  being  done  by  the  Imperial 
authorities,  His  Excellency  assured  the  inquirer,  to  safeguard 
the  lives  and  property  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Gold-Reef 
Town  in  the  extent  of  an  attack  by  a  hostile  force. 

Also  the  military  armament  of  the  place  was  about  to  be  ma- 
terially increased. 

And  yet  up  to  the  little  frontier  town  upon  which  so  much  de- 
pended not  a  single  modern  gun  had  been  despatched. 

An  easy  prey  had  the  little  town  upon  the  flat-topped  hill, 
set  in  the  mi'ddle  of  a  basin,  proved  to  the  Boer  General  and  his 
commandos  but  for  one  thing.  For  weeks  after  the  bursting 
of  the  first  shell  over  Gueldersdorp  three  sides  of  the  belea- 
guered town  were  so  many  open  doors  for  the  enemy.  Only 
upon  the  threshold  of  each  door  stood  Fear,  and  guarded  and 
held  the  citadel. 

Ill 

THAT  hard  taskmaster,  Satan,  is  sometimes  wonderfully  in- 
dulgent to  those  who  serve  him  well.  While  Bough,  the 
keeper  of  the  tavern,  was  yet  turning  about  the  open  letter 
in  his  thick,  short,  hairy  hands,  weighing  the  chances  attend- 
ing the  sending  of  it  against  the  chances  of  keeping  it  back, 
the  woman  who  served  as  mistress  of  the  place  thrust  her 
coarsely-waved  head  of  yellow  bleached  hair  and  rouge-ruddled 
face  in  at  the  room  door,  and  called  to  him : 

"  Boss,  the  sick  toff  is  doing  a  croak.  Giving  up  the  ghost 
for  all  he's  worth — he  is.  Better  come  and  take  a  look  for 
yourself  if  you  don't  believe  me." 

Bough  swore  with  relief  and  surprise,  delayed  only  to  lock 
away  the  letter,  and  went  to  take  a  look.  It  was  as  he  hoped, 
a  real  stroke  of  luck  for  a  man  who  knew  how  to  work  it. 
And  he  knew  now  what  he  would  do. 

Richard  Mildare — for  Bough  knew  now  what  had  been  the 
name  of  the  Englishman:  Ma  lor  the  Hon.  Richard  Mildare, 


16  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

late  of  the  Grey  Hussars — was  dead.  No  hand  made  murder- 
ous by  the  lust  of  gold  had  helped  him  to  his  death.  Sudden 
failure  of  the  heart  is  common  in  aggravated  cases  of  rheumatic 
fever,  and  with  one  suffocating  struggle,  one  brief  final  pang, 
he  had  gone  to  join  her  he  loved.  But  his  dead  face  did  not 
look  at  rest.  There  was  some  reflection  in  it  of  that  terror 
that  had  come  upon  him  in  the  watches  of  that  last  night. 

Bough  stayed  some  time  alone  in  the  room  of  death.  When 
he  came  out  he  was  extremely  affable  and  gentle.  The  woman, 
who  knew  him,  chuckled  to  herself  when  he  met  the  Kaffir 
serving-maid  bringing  back  the  child  from  an  airing  in  the  sun, 
and  told  her  to  take  it  to  the  mistress.  Then  he  went  into  the 
bar-room  to  speak  to  the  Englishman's  Boer  driver. 

Leaning  easily  upon  the  zinc-covered  counter  he  spoke  to 
the  man  in  the  Taal,  with  which  he  was  perfectly  familiar: 

"  Your  Baas  has  gone  in,  as  my  wife  and  I  expected." 

Smoots  Beste  growled  in  his  throat: 

"  He  was  no  Baas  of  mine,  the  verdoemte  rooinek!  I  drove 
for  him  for  pay,  that  is  all.  There  is  wage  owing  me  still, 
for  the  matter  of  that — and  where  am  I  to  get  it  now  that  the 
heathen  has  gone  to  the  burning?  " 

Smoots,  who  was  all  of  a  heathen  himself,  and  regularly 
got  drunk,  not  only  on  week  days,  but  on  Sabbaths,  felt  virtu- 
ously certain  that  the  Englishman  had  gone  to  Hell. 

Bough  smiled  and  poured  out  a  four-finger  swig  of  bad  Cape 
brandy,  and  pushed  it  across  the  counter. 

"  You  shall  get  the  money,  every  tikkie.  Only  listen  to 
me." 

Smoots  Beste  tossed  off  the  fiery  liquid,  and  returned  in  a  tone 
less  surly: 

"  I  am  listening,  Baas." 

Bough  told  him,  speaking  with  the  thickish  lisp  and  slurring 
of  the  consonants  that  distinguished  his  speech  when  he  sought 
to  appear  more  simple  and  candid  than  usual. 

"  This  dead  toff,  with  his  flash  waggon  and  fine  team,  and 
Winchester  repeating-rifles,  had  very  little  money.  He  has 
died  in  my  debt  for  the  room  and  the  nursing,  and  the  good 
nourishment,  for  which  I  trusted  him  all  these  three  weeks, 
and  I  am  a  poor  man.  The  dollars  I  have  paid  you  and  the 
Kaffir  and  the  Cape  boys  on  his  account  came  out  of  my  own 
pocket.  Rotten  soft  have  I  acted  over  him,  that's  the  God's 
truth,  and  when  I  shall  get  back  my  own  there's  no  knowing. 
But,  of  course,  I  shall  act 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  17 

The  Boer's  thick  lips  parted  in  a  grin,  showing  his  dirty, 
greenish-yellow  teeth.  He  scratched  his  shaggy  head,  and  said, 
his  tongue  lubricated  to  incautiousness  by  the  potent  liquor: 

"  The  waggons,  and  the  oxen,  and  the  guns  and  ammunition, 
and  the  stores  in  the  second  waggon  are  worth  good  money. 
And  the  woman  that  is  dead  had  jewels — I  have  seen  them  on 
her — diamonds  and  rubies  in  rings  and  bracelets  fit  for  the 
vrouw  of  King  Solomon  himself.  The  Englishman  did  not 
bury  them  with  her  under  that  verdoemte  kopje  that  he  built 
with  his  two  hands,  and  they  are  not  in  the  boxes  in  the  living- 
wagon." 

"  Did  he  not?"  asked  Bough,  looking  the  Boer  driver  full 
in  the  eyes  with  a  pleasant  smile.  "  Are  they  not?" 

Smoots  Beste's  piggish  eyes  twinkled  round  the  bar-room., 
looked  up  at  the  ceiling,  down  at  the  floor,  anywhere  but  into 
Bough's  face.  He  spat,  and  said  in  a  much  more  docile  tone: 

"  What  do  you  want  me  to  do  ?  " 

Bough  leaned  over  the  counter,  and  said  confidentially: 

"  Just  this,  friend.  I  want  you  to  inspan,  and  take  one  of 
the  waggons  up  to  Gueldersdorp,  with  a  letter  from  me  to  the 
Civil  Commissioner.  I  will  tell  him  how  the  man  is  dead, 
and  he  will  send  down  a  magistrate's  clerk  to  put  a  seal  on  the 
boxes  and  cases,  and  then  he  will  go  through  the  letters  and 
papers  in  the  pocket-book,  and  write  to  the  people  of  the  dead 
man  over  in  England,  supposing  he  has  any,  for  I  have  heard 
him  tell  my  wife  there  was  not  a  living  soul  of  his  name  now, 
except  the  child " 

"  But  what  good  will  all  this  do  you  and  me,  Baas?"  asked 
the  Boer  subserviently. 

Bough  spread  his  hands  and  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  Why,  when  the  magistrates  and  lawyers  have  hunted  up 
the  man's  family,  there  will  be  an  order  to  sell  the  waggons 
and  oxen  and  other  property  to  pay  the  expenses  of  his  bury- 
ing, and  the  child's  keep  here  and  passage  from  Cape  Town,  if 
she  is  to  be  sent  to  England  .  .  .  and  what  is  left  over,  see 
you,  after  the  law  expenses  have  been  paid,  will  go  to  the 
settlement  of  our  just  claims.  They  will  never  let  honest  men 
suffer  for  behaving  square,  sure  no,  they'll  not  do  that! ' 

But  though  Bough's  words  were  full  of  faith  in  the  fair  deal- 
ing of  the  lawyers  and  magistrates,  his  tone  implied  doubt. 

"  Boer  lawyers  are  slim  rogues  at  best,  and  Engelsch  lawyers 
are  duyvels  as  well  as  rogues,"  said  Smoots  Beste,  with  a  dull 
flash  of  originality. 


i«  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

Bough  nodded,  and  pushed  another  glass  of  liquor  across  the 
bar. 

"  And  that's  true  enough.  I've  a  score  to  settle  with  one 
or  two  of  'em.  By  gum!  I  call  myself  lucky  to  be  in  this 
with  a  square  man  like  you.  There's  the  waggon,  brand-new 
— you  know  what  it  cost  at  Cape  Town — and  the  team,  I  trust 
you  to  take  up  to  Gueldersdorp,  and  who's  to  hinder  a  man  who 
hasn't  the  fear  of  the  Lord  in  him  for  heading  north  instead 
of  north-west,  selling  the  waggon  and  the  beasts  at  Kreilstad 
or  Schoenbroon,  and  living  on  a  snug  farm  of  your  own  for 
the  rest  of  your  life  under  another  man's  name,  where  the 
English  magistrates  and  the  police  will  never  find  you,  though 
their  noses  were  keener  than  the  wild  dogs?  " 

"  Allemachtig !  "  gasped  Smoots  Beste,  rendered  breathless 
by  the  alluring,  tempting  prospect.  Surely  the  devil  spoke 
with  the  voice  of  the  tavern-keeper  Bough,  when,  in  human 
form,  he  tempted  children  of  men.  Sweat  glistened  on  his 
flabby  features,  his  thick  hands  trembled,  and  his  bowels  were 
as  water.  But  his  purpose  was  solidifying  in  his  brain  as  he 
said  innocently,  looking  over  Bough's  left  shoulder  at  the 
wooden  partition  that  divided  off  the  bar  from  the  landlord's 
dwelling-room : 

"  Aye,  I  am  no  dirty  schelom  that  cannot  be  trusted.  There- 
fore would  it  not  be  better  if  I  took  both  teams  and  waggons, 
and  all  the  rooinek's  goods  with  me  up  to  Gueldersdorp,  and 
handed  it  over  to  the  Engelsch  landrost  there  ?  " 

The  fish  was  hooked.  Bough  said,  steadily  avoiding  those 
twirling  eyes: 

"  A  good  notion,  but  the  lawyer  chaps  at  Gueldersdorp  will 
want  to  look  at  the  Englishman's  dead  body  to  be  able  to  satisfy 
his  people  that  he  did  not  die  of  a  gunshot,  or  of  a  knife- 
thrust;  we  must  bury  him,  of  course,  but  not  too  deep  for  them 
to  dig  him  up  again.  And  they  will  want  to  ferret  in  all  the 
corners  of  the  room  where  he  died,  and  make  sure  that  his 
bags  and  boxes  have  not  been  tampered  with — and  then  there 
is  the  child.  In  a  way  " — he  spoke  slowly  and  apologetically — • 
"  the  Kid  and  the  goods  are  my  security  for  getting  my  own 
back  again — if  ever  I  do.  So  you  will  inspan  one  of  the 
waggons,  the  best  if  you  like,  with  a  team  of  six  beasts,  and 
you  will  trek  up  to  Gueldersdorp — you  will  travel  light  enough 
with  only  the  grub  you  will  need,  and  the  Cape  boys,  and  you 
will  hand  over  the  letter  to  the  Resident  Magistrate,  and  bring 
back  the  man  who  will  act  as  his  deputy." 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  19 

But  at  this  point  Smoots  Beste  set  down  his  splay  foot.  He 
would  undertake  to  deliver  the  letter,  but  he  objected  to  the 
company  of  the  coloured  voor-loopers  or  the  Kaffir  driver.  He 
was  firm  upon  that  and,  finding  his  most  honeyed  persuasions 
of  no  avail,  Bough  said  no  more.  He  would  pay  off  the  niggers 
and  dismiss  them,  or  get  rid  of  them  without  paying;  there 
were  ways  and  means.  He  sent  up  country,  and  the  team  came 
down,  six  thin,  over-worked  creatures,  with  new  scars  upon 
their  slack  and  baggy  hides,  and  hollow  flanks,  and  ribs  that 
showed  painfully.  Smoots  Beste  was  about  to  grumble,  but 
he  changed  his  mind,  and  took  the  letter,  buttoning  it  up  in 
the  flapped  pocket  of  his  tan-cord  jacket,  and  the  long  whip 
cracked  like  a  revolver  as  the  lash  hissed  out  over  the  backs 
of  the  wincing  oxen,  and  the  white  tilt  rocked  over  the  veld, 
heading  to  the  nor'-west. 

"When  will  the  Dutchy  be  back,  boss?"  asked  the  woman, 
with  a  knowing  look. 

Bough  played  the  game  up  to  her.  He  answered  quite  seri- 
ously: "In  three  weeks'  time." 

Then  he  strolled  out  smoking  a  cigar,  his  hat  tilted  at  an 
angle  that  spoke  of  satisfaction.  His  walk  led  him  past  the 
oblong  cairn  of  ironstone  boulders  in  the  middle  of  the  sandy 
patch  of  ground  enclosed  with  zinc  wire-netting.  At  the  foot 
of  the  cairn  was  a  new  grave. 

So  the  lover  did  not  even  lie  beside  his  beloved,  as  he  had 
vowred  once,  promised  and  planned,  but  couched  below  her 
feet,  waiting,  like  some  faithful  hound  that  could  not  live  with- 
out the  touch  of  the  beloved  hand,  for  the  dead  to  rise  again. 

Why  is  it  that  Failure  is  the  inevitable  fate  of  some  men 
and  women?  Despite  brilliant  prospects,  positions  that  seem 
assured,  commanding  talents  nobly  used,  splendid  opportunities 
that  are  multiplied  as  though  in  mockery,  the  result  is  Nothing 
from  the  first  to  last;  while  the  bad  flourish  and  the  evil 
prosper,  and  the  world  honours  the  stealer  of  the  fruit  of  the 
brains  that  have  been  scattered  in  frenzied  despair,  or  have 
become  so  worn  out  from  the  constant  effort  of  creation  that 
the  worker  has  sunk  into  hopeless  apathy  and  died. 

Bough  was  not  one  of  those  men  whose  plans  come  to  noth- 
ing. He  had  prospered  as  a  rogue  of  old  in  England,  really 
his  native  country,  though  he  called  himself  an  Afrikander. 
Reared  in  the  gutters  of  the  Irish  quarter  of  Liverpool,  he  had 
early  learned  to  pilfer  for  a  living,  had  prospered  in  prison  as 
sharp  young  gaol-birds  may  prosper,  and  returned  to  it  -again 


to  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

and  again,  until,  having  served  out  part  of  a  sentence  for 
burglary  and  obtained  his  ticket-of-leave,  he  hi:d  shifted  his 
convict's  skin,  and  made  his  way  out  to  Cape  Colony  under  a 
false  name  and  character.  He  had  made  a  mistake,  it  was  true, 
enlisting  as  a  trooper  of  Colonial  Police,  but  the  step  had  been 
forced  upon  him  by  circumstances.  Then  he  had  deserted,  and 
had  since  been  successful  as  a  white-slave  dealer  at  Port 
Elizabeth,  and  as  a  gold-miner  in  the  Transvaal,  and  he  had 
done  better  and  better  still  at  that  ticklish  trade  of  gun-running 
for  Oom  Paul.  For,  get  caught — only  once  get  caught — and 
the  Imperial  Government  authorities,  under  whose  noses  you 
had  been  playing  the  game  with  impunity  for  years,  made  it  as 
hot  as  Hell  for  you.  Bough,  however,  did  not  mean  ever  to 
get  caught.  There  was  always  another  man,  a  semi-innocent 
dupe,  who  would  appear  to  have  been  responsible  for  every- 
thing, and  who  would  get  pinched. 

Such  a  dupe  now  trudged  at  the  head  of  the  meagre  three- 
span  ox-team.  When,  after  a  hard  day's  toil,  he  at  length 
outspanned,  the  waggon-pole  still  faithfully  pointed  to  the 
north-west.  But  before  it  was  yet  day  the  waggon  began  to 
move  again,  and  it  was  to  the  north  that  the  waggon-pole 
pointed  thenceforwards,  and  the  letter  Bough  had  given  Smoots 
Beste  for  the  City  Resident  Magistrate  at  Gueldersdorp  was 
saved  from  the  kindling  of  the  camp-fire  by  a  mere  accident. 

The  cat's-paw  could  not  read,  or  the  illegible,  meaningless 
ink  scrawl  upon  the  sheet  within  the  boldly-addressed  envelope 
would  have  aroused  his  suspicions  at  the  outset.  So  well  had 
Bough,  that  expert  in  human  frailty,  understood  his  subject, 
that  the  letter  was  a  bogus  letter,  a  fraud,  not  elaborate — a 
mere  stage  property,  nothing  more.  But  yet  he  gave  it  in  full 
belief  that  it  would  be  burned,  and  that,  the  boats  of  Smoots 
Beste  being  consumed  with  it,  according  to  the  thick  judgment 
of  the  said  Smoots,  it  would  be  as  a  pillar  of  fire  behind  that 
slim  child  of  the  old  voor-trekkers,  hastening  his  journey  north. 
It  is  typical  of  the  class  of  Smoots  that  it  never  once  occurred 
to  Smoots  to  go  east. 

But  Smoots  Beste  never  bought  a  farm  wifh  the  price  of 
the  oxen  and  the  high-bulwarked,  teak-built,  waterproof-canvas 
tilted  waggon  that  had  cost  such  a  good  round  sum.  There 
was  a  big  rainfall  on  the  third  day.  It  began  with  the  typical 
African  thunderstorm — deafening,  continuous  rolls  and  crashes 
of  heavy  cloud-artillery,  and  lightning  that  blazed  and  darted 
without  intermission,  and  ran  zigzagging  in  a  horrible,  deadly, 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  21 

playful  fashion  over  the  veld,  as  though  looking  for  dishonest 
folks  to  shrivel.  One  terrible  flash  struck  the  wheel-oxen,  a 
thin  double  tongue  of  blue  flame  sped  flickering  from  ridge  to 
ridge  of  the  six  gaunt  backs  .  .  .  there  was  a  smell  of  burning 
hair — a  reek  of  sulphur.  The  team  lay  outstretched  dead  on 
the  veld,  the  heavy  yoke  across  their  patient  necks,  the  long 
horns  curving,  the  thin  starved  bodies  already  beginning  to 
bloat  and  swell  in  the  swift  decomposition  that  follows  death 
by  the  electric  fluid. 

Smoots  Beste  crawled  under  the  waggon,  and,  remembering 
all  he  had  heard  his  father  spell  out  from  the  Dutch  Bible 
about  the  Judgment  Day,  and  the  punishment  of  sinners  in 
everlasting  flame,  felt  very  ill  at  ease.  The  storm  passed  over, 
and  the  rain  rained  all  through  the  night,  but  dawn  brought 
in  a  clear  blue  day;  and  with  it  a  train  of  eight  transport- 
waggons,  and  several  wearied,  muddy  droves  of  sheep  and  cat- 
tle, the  property  of  the  Imperial  Government  Commissariat  De- 
partment, Gueldersdorp,  being  taken  from  Basutoland  East  up 
to  Gueldersdorp,  under  convoy  of  an  escort  of  B.S.A.  Police. 
To  the  non-commissioned  officer  in  command  Smoots  Beste, 
resigned  to  the  discharge  of  a  trust,  handed  the  letter  for  the 
Civil  Commissioner. 

The  sergeant,  sitting  easily  in  the  saddle,  looked  at  the  illeg- 
ible inky  flymarks  on  the  envelope,  and  smelt  rats.  Then  he 
coolly  opened  the  supposed  letter.  It  contained  a  blank  sheet 
of  paper,  but  he  did  not  let  Smoots  see  that.  Then  the  follow- 
ing brief  dialogue  took  place: 

"  You  were  trekking  up  to  Gueldersdorp,"  he  said  to  the 
decidedly  nervous  Smoots,  "  to  fetch  down  a  Deputy  Civil 
Commissioner  to  deal  with  the  effects  of  a  dead  English 
traveller,  at  a  house  kept  by  the  man  who  wrote  this  letter — 
that  is,  three  days'  trek  over  the  veld  to  the  southward,  and 
called  the  Free  State  Hotel  ?  " 

Smoots  nodded  heavily.  The  dapper  sergeant  cocked  his 
felt  smasher  hat,  and  turned  between  pleasantly  smiling  lips 
the  cigar  he  was  smoking.  Then  he  pointed  with  his  riding- 
whip,  a  neatly  varnished  sjambok,  with  a  smart  silver  top,  to 
the  north-west. 

"  There  lies  Gueldersdorp.  Rum  that  when  the  lightning 
killed  the  ox-team  you  should  have  been  trekking  due  north, 
isn't  it?" 

Smoots  Beste  agreed  that  it  was  decidedly  rum. 

The  sergeant  said,  without  a  change  in  his  agreeable  smile: 


22  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"  All  right ;  you  can  inspan  six  of  our  drove-bullocks,  and 
drive  the  waggon  with  us  to  Gueldersdorp." 

"  Thank  you,  Baas !  "  said  Smoots,  without  enthusiasm. 

"  If  you  like  to  take  the  risk,"  added  the  sergeant,  who  had 
not  quite  finished.  He  ended  with  an  irrepressible  outburst 
of  honest  indignation:  "Why,  you  blasted,  thieving  Dutch 
scum,  do  you  think  I  don't  know  you  were  stealing  that  span 
and  waggon  ?  " 

And  as  Smoots,  sweating  freely,  unyoked  the  dead  oxen,  he 
decided  in  his  heavy  mind  that  he  would  be  missing  long  be- 
fore the  convoy  got  to  Gueldersdorp. 

Nine  waggons  rolled  on  where  only  eight  had  been  before. 
The  mounted  men  hurried  on  the  daubed  and  wearied  droves 
of  Commissariat  beasts.  Smoots  Beste  drove  the  scratch  team 
of  bullocks,  but  his  heart  was  as  water  within  his  belly,  and 
there  \vas  no  resonance  in  the  smack  of  his  whip.  When  the 
convoy  came  to  a  town,  he  vanished,  and  the  story  thenceforth 
knows  him  no  more.  The  discreet  sergeant  of  police  did  not 
even  notice  that  he  was  missing  until  several  days  later,  when 
the  end  of  the  journey  was  near  at  hand.  He  was  a  sober, 
careful  man,  and  a  good  husband.  He  shortly  afterwards 
made  quite  a  liberal  remittance  to  his  wife,  and  his  troopers 
pushed  Kruger  half-sovereigns  across  most  of  the  bars  in  Guel- 
dersdorp shortly  after  the  purchase  by  a  Dopper  farmer  of  a 
teak-built  Cape  waggon  that  a  particular  friend  of  the  ser- 
geant's had  got  to  sell.  And  they  were  careful,  at  first,  not 
to  wag  loose  tongues.  But  as  time  went  on  the  story  of  the 
English  traveller  who  had  brought  the  body  of  the  woman  to 
the  Free  State  Hotel,  so  many  days'  trek  to  the  southward  from 
Gueldersdorp,  trickled  from  lip  to  lip.  And  years  later,  ten 
years  too  late,  it  came  to  the  ears  of  a  friend  of  dead  Richard 
Mildare. 

The  sergeant  maintained  silence.  He  was  a  careful  officer, 
and  a  discreet  man,  and,  what  is  more,  religious.  In  con- 
troversial arguments  with  the  godless  he  would  sometimes 
employ  a  paraphrase  of  the  story  of  Smoots  Beste  to  strengthen 
his  side. 

"  A  chap's  a  blamed  fool  that  doesn't  believe  in  God,  I  tell 
you.  I  was  once  after  a  bung-nosed  Dutch  thief  of  a  transport- 
driver,  that  had  waltzed  away  with  a  brand-new  Cape  cart  and 
a  team  of  first-class  mules.  Taking  'em  up  to  Pretoiia  on  the 
quiet,  to  sell  'em  to  Oom  Paul's  burghers,  he  was.  Ay,  they 
were  worth  a  tidy  lump!  A  storm  came  on — a  regular  Vaal 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  23 

display  of  sky  fireworks.  The  rain  came  down  like  gun-barrels, 
the  veld  turned  into  a  swamp,  but  he  kept  on  after  the  Dutch- 
man, who  drove  like  gay  old  Hell.  Presently  comes  a  blue 
blaze  and  a  splitting  crack,  as  if  a  comet  had  come  shouldering 
into  the  map  of  South  Africa,  and  knocked  its  head  in.  We 
pushed  on,  smelling  sulphur,  burnt  flesh,  and  hair  '  By  gum ! ' 
said  I ;  '  something's  got  it ' :  and  I  was  to  rights.  The  Cape 
cart  stood  on  the  veld,  without  a  scratch  on  the  paintwork. 
The  four  mules  lay  in  their  traces,  deader  than  pork.  The 
Dutchman  sat  on  the  box,  holding  the  lines  and  his  voorslaag, 
and  grinning.  He  was  dead,  too — struck  by  the  lightning  in 
the  act  of  stealing  those  mules  and  that  Cape  cart.  Don't  let 
any  fellow  waste  hot  air  after  that  trying  to  persuade  me  that 
there  isn't  such  a  thing  as  an  overruling  Providence." 

Thus  the  sergeant:  and  his  audience,  whether  Free-thinkers, 
Agnostics,  or  believers,  would  break  up,  feeli"^  jiat  one  who 
has  the  courage  of  his  opinions  is  a  respectable  man- 
As  for  Bough,  in  whose  hands  even  the  astute  ^ergeant  had 
been  as  a  peeled  rush,  we  may  go  back  and  fini  him  counting 
money  in  gold  and  notes  that  had  been  taken  from  the  belt  of 
the  dead  English  traveller. 

Seventeen  hundred  pounds,  good  cash — a  pretty  windfall 
for  an  honest  man.  The  honest  man  whistled  softly,  handling 
the  white  crackling  notes,  and  feeling  the  smooth,  heavy  Eng- 
lish sovereigns  slip  between  his  ringers. 

There  were  certificates  of  Rand  stock,  also  a  goodly  amount 
of  Colonial  Railway  shares,  and  some  foreign  bonds,  all  of 
which  could  be  realized  on,  but  at  a  distance,  and  by  a  skilled 
hand.  There  were  jewels,  as  the  Boer  waggon-driver  had  said, 
that  had  belonged  to  the  dead  woman — diamond  rings,  and  a 
bracelet  or  two ;  and  there  were  silk  dresses  of  lovely  hues  and 
texture,  and  cambric  and  linen  dresses,  and  tweed  dresses,  in 
the  trunks;  and  a  great  cloak  of  sables,  trimmed  with  many, 
tails,  and  beautiful  underclothing  of  silk  and  linen,  trimmed 
with  real  lace,  over  which  the  mouth  of  the  woman  of  the 
tavern  watered.  She  got  some  of  the  dresses  and  all  the  un- 
dergarments when  Bough  had  dexterously  picked  out  the  em- 
broidered initials.  He  knew  diamonds  and  rubies,  but  he  had 
never  been  a  judge  of  lace. 

There  was  a  coronet  upon  one  or  two  handkerchiefs  that  had 
been  overlooked  when  the  dead  woman  had  burned  the  others 
four  years  before.  Bough  picked  these  out  too,  working  deftly 
with  a  needle. 


24  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

He  was  clever,  very  clever.  He  could  take  to  pieces  a  steam- 
engine  or  a  watch,  and  put  it  together  again.  He  knew  all 
there  is  to  know  about  locks,  and  how  they  may  best  be  opened 
without  their  keys.  He  could  alter  plate-marks  with  graving 
tools  and  the  jeweller's  blow-pipe,  and  test  metals  with  acids, 
and  make  plaster-cast  moulds  that  would  turn  out  dollars  and 
other  coins,  remarkably  like  the  real  thing.  He  was  not  a 
clever  forger;  he  had  learned  to  write  somewhat  late  in  life, 
and  the  large,  bold  roundhand,  with  the  capital  letters  that 
invariably  began  with  the  wrong  quirk  or  twirl,  was  too  char- 
acteristic, though  he  wrote  anonymous  letters  sometimes,  risk- 
ing detection  in  the  enjoyment  of  what  was  to  him  a  dear  de- 
light, only  smaller  than  that  other  pleasure  of  moulding  bodies 
to  his  own  purposes,  of  lust,  or  gain,  or  malice. 


IV 

THERE  was  a  child  in  the  tavern  on  the  veld;  it  lay  in  an 
old  orange-box,  half-filled  with  shavings,  covered  with  a  thin, 
worn  blanket,  in  the  daub-and-wattle  outhouse,  where  the 
Hottentot  woman,  called  the  chambermaid,  and  the  Kaffir 
woman,  who  was  cook,  slept  together  on  one  filthy  pallet. 
Sometimes  they  stayed  up  at  the  tavern,  drinking  and  carous- 
ing with  the  Dutch  travellers  who  brought  the  supplies  of 
Hollands  and  Cape  brandy  and  lager  beer,  and  the  American 
or  English  gold-miners  and  German  drummers  who  put  up 
there  from  time  to  time.  Then  the  child  lay  in  the  outhouse 
alone.  It  was  a  frail,  puny  creature,  always  frightened  and 
silent.  It  lived  on  a  little  mealie  pap  and  odd  bits  of  roasted 
cakes  that  were  thrown  to  it  as  though  it  were  a  dog.  When 
the  coloured  women  forgot  to  feed  it,  they  said :  "  It  does  not 
matter.  Anyhow,  the  thing  will  die  soon ! "  But  it  lived  on 
when  another  child  would  have  died.  .  .  .  There  was  some- 
thing uncanny  about  its  great-eyed  silence  and  its  tenacious  hold 
on  life. 

It  had  only  been  able  to  toddle  when  brought  to  the  tavern. 
The  rains  and  thunderstorms  of  spring  went  by,  the  summer 
passed,  and  it  could  walk  about.  It  was  a  weakly  little  crea- 
ture, with  great  frightened  eyes,  amber-brown,  with  violet  flecks 
in  their  black-banded  irises,  and  dark,  thick  lashes;  and  the 
delicately-drawn  eyebrows  were  dark  too,  though  its  hair  was 
soft  yellow — just  the  colour  of  a  chicken's  down.  Many  a 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  25 

cuff  it  got,  and  many  a  hard  word,  when  its  straying  feet 
brought  it  into  the  way  of  the  rough  life  up  at  the  tavern. 
But  still  the  scrap  of  food  was  tossed  to  it,  and  the  worn-out 
petticoat  roughly  cobbled  into  a  garment  for  its  little  body; 
for  Bough  was  a  charitable  man. 

It  wa$  a  P°°r  orphan,  he  explained  to  people,  the  child  of  a 
consumptive  emigrant  Englishman  who  had  worked  for  the 
landlord  of  the  tavern,  and  left  this  burden  for  other  shoulders 
when  he  died.  Charitable  travellers  frequently  left  benefac- 
tions towards  the  little  one's  clothing  and  keep.  Bough  will- 
ingly took  charge  of  the  money.  The  child  strayed  here,  there, 
and  everywhere.  It  was  often  lost,  but  nobody  looked  for  it, 
and  it  always  came  back.  It  liked  to  climb  the  cairn  of  bould- 
ers, or  to  sit  on  the  long,  low  hillock  at  the  cairn's  foot.  The 
wire  fencing  had  long  been  removed  from  the  enclosure;  it 
had  gone  to  make  a  chicken-pen  in  a  more  suitable  spot.  The 
cross  had  been  taken  down  when  a  prop  was  wanted  for  the 
clothes-line. 

The  child,  often  beaten  by  Bough  and  the  woman  of  the 
tavern,  might  have  been  even  worse  treated  by  the  coloured 
servants  but  for  those  two  graves  out  on  the  veld.  Black 
blood  flows  thick  with  superstition,  and  both  the  Kaffir  cook 
and  the  snuff-coloured  Hottentot  chambermaid  nourished  a 
wholesome  dread  of  spooks.  Who  knew  but  that  the  white 
woman's  ghost  would  rise  out  of  the  kopje  there,  some  dark 
night,  and  pinch  and  cuff  and  thump  and  beat  people  who  had 
ill-used  her  bantling?  As  for  the  dead  man  buried  at  her 
feet,  his  dim  shape  had  often  been  seen  by  one  of  the  Basuto 
stablemen,  keeping  guard  before  the  heap  of  boulders,  in  the 
white  blaze  of  the  moon-rays,  or  the  paler  radiance  of  a  starry 
night,  or  more  often  of  a  night  of  mist  and  rain ;  not  moving 
as  a  sentry  moves,  but  upright  and  still,  with  shining  fiery  eyes 
in  his  shadowy  face,  and  with  teeth  that  showed,  as  the  dead 
grin.  After  that  none  of  the  servants  would  pass  near  these 
two  graves  later  than  sundown,  and  Bough  welted  the  Basuto 
boy  with  an  ox-reim  for  scaring  silly  jades  of  women  with  lying 
tales.  But  then  Bough  avoided  the  spot  by  day  as  well  as  by 
night.  Therefore,  it  became  a  constant  place  of  refuge  for  the 
child,  who  now  slept  in  the  outhouse  alone. 

In  the  long,  brilliant  winter  nights  she  would  leave  the 
straw-stuffed  sack  that  had  been  her  bed  ever  since  the  orange- 
box  had  been  broken  up,  and  climb  the  stone-heaps,  and  look 
over  the  lonely  veld,  and  stare  up  at  the  great  blazing  constella- 


26  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

tion  of  the  Southern  Cross.  In  spring,  when  pools  and  river- 
beds were  full  of  foaming  beer-coloured  water,  and  every  kloof 
and  donga  was  brimmed  with  flowers  and  ferns,  she  would  be 
drawn  away  by  these,  would  return,  trailing  after  her  arm- 
fuls  of  rare  blooms,  and  thenceforward,  until  these  faded,  the 
ridgy  grave-mound  and  the  heaped  cairn  of  boulders  would  be 
gay  with  them.  She  never  took  them  to  the  house.  It  might 
have  meant  a  beating — so  many  things  did. 

In  August,  when  the  little  apricots  and  peaches  were  as  large 
as  the  dice  Bough  threw  with  customers  for  drinks,  she  would 
wander  in  the  orchard  belonging  to  the  house,  while  the  heavy 
tropical  rains  drummed  on  the  leaves  overhead,  and  sudden 
furious  thunderstorms  rent  the  livid-coloured  clouds  above  with 
jagged  scythes  and  reaping-hooks  of  white  electric  fire,  or  leap- 
ing, dancing,  playing,  vanishing  tongues  of  thin  blue.  Once 
this  fire  struck  a  krantz,  under  the  lee  of  which  the  child  was 
sheltering,  and  made  a  black  scorched  mark  all  down  the  cliff- 
face,  but  left  the  child  unscathed. 

No  one  had  ever  taught  her  anything;  no  one  had  ever  laid 
a  gentle  hand  upon  her.  When  she  first  saw  mothers  and 
daughters,  friend  and  friend,  sweetheart  and  sweetheart  kiss, 
it  seemed  to  her  that  they  licked  each  other,  as  friendly  dogs 
do.  She  had  no  name  that  she  knew  of. 

"  You  kid,  go  there.  You  kid,  fetch  this  or  bring  that. 
You  kid,  go  to  the  drift  for  water,  or  take  the  besom  and  sweep 
the  stoep,  or  scrub  out  the  room  there — do  you  hear,  you  kid  ?  " 
These  orders  came  thick  and  fast  when  at  last  she  was  old 
enough  to  work;  and  she  was  old  enough  when  she  was  very 
young,  and  did  work  like  a  little  beast  of  burden.  A  real 
mother's  heart — all  mothers  are  not  real  ones — would  have  ' 
ached  to  see  the  dirt  and  bruises  on  the  delicate  childish  limbs, 
and  the  vermin  that  crawled  under  the  yellow  rings  of  hair. 
How  to  be  clean  and  tidy  nobody  had  ever  shown  her,  though 
she  had  learned  by  instinct  other  things. 

That  it  was  best  to  bear  hunger  and  pain  in  silence,  lest 
worse  befell.  That  a  truth  for  which  one  suffers  is  not  as  good 
as  a  lie  for  which  one  gets  a  bigger  roasten  cake,  or  the  scrap- 
ings of  the  syrup-can.  That  to  little,  weak,  and  feeble  crea- 
tures of  their  race  grown  human  beings  can  be  marvellously 
cruel.  That  the  devil  lived  down  in  the  Kraals  with  the 
Kaffirs,  and  that  God  was  a  swear.  It  is  a  wonder  that  she 
had  not  sunk  into  idiocy,  or  hopelessly  sicken  and  die,  neglected, 
ill-used,  half-starved  as  she  was.  But  the  bright  intelligence 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  27 

under  the  neglected  mass  of  yellow  curls  struck  out  a  spark 
to  save  her,  or  He  Who  seemed  to  have  forgotten  her  remem- 
bered the  little  one.  She  might  have  been  six  years  of  age 
when  the  Lady  began  coming.  And  after  the  first  time,  with 
very  brief  intervals,  she  came  every  night. 


As  soon  as  you  lay  down  on  the  sack  of  straw  in  the  corner 
of  the  outhouse,  slipping  out  of  the  ragged  frock  if  the 
weather  were  hot,  or  pulling  the  thin  old  horse-blanket  over 
you  if  the  night  were  a  cold  one,  keeping  your  eyes  tight  shut, 
for  this  was  quite  indispensable,  you  looked  into  the  thick  dark, 
shot  with  gleams  of  lovely  colours,  sometimes  with  whirling 
rings  of  stars,  and  gradually,  as  you  looked,  all  these  con- 
centrated into  two  stars,  large  and  not  twinkling,  but  softly 
radiant,  and  you  wrere  happy,  for  you  knew  that  the  Lady  was 
coming. 

For  she  always  came,  even  when  you  had  been  most  wicked, 
when  you  were  sent  to  bed  without  even  the  supper  crust  to 
gnaw,  and  when  your  body  and  arms  and  legs  were  bruised  and 
aching  from  the  beating  they  told  you  you  deserved.  The 
stars  would  go  a  long  way  off,  and  while  you  tingled  and 
trembled  and  panted  with  expectation,  would  come  back  again 
as  eyes.  Looking  up  into  them,  you  saw  them  clearly;  the 
rest  of  the  person  they  belonged  to  arrived  quite  a  little  while 
after  her  eyes  were  there.  Such  eyes — neither  grey,  nor  brown, 
nor  violet,  but  a  mingling  of  all  these  colours,  and  deepening 
as  you  gazed  up  into  them  into  bottomless  lakes  of  love. 

Then  her  face,  framed  in  a  soft  darkness,  which  was  hair — 
the  Kid  never  knew  of  what  colour — her  face  formed  itself 
out  of  the  darkness  that  framed  those  eyes,  and  a  warm,  balmy 
breath  came  nearer,  and  you  were  kissed.  No  other  lips,  in 
your  short  remembrance,  had  ever  touched  you.  You  had 
learned  the  meaning  of  a  kiss  only  from  her,  and  hers  was  so 
long  and  close  that  your  heart  left  off  beating,  and  only  began 
again  when  it  was  over.  Then  arms  that  were  soft  and  warm, 
and  strong  and  beautiful,  came  around  you  and  gathered  you 
in,  and  you  fell  asleep  folded  closely  in  them,  or  you  lay  awake, 
and  the  Lady  talked  to  you  in  a  voice  that  was  mellow  as 
honey  and  soft  as  velvet,  and  sounded  like  the  cooing  of  the 
wild  pigeons  that  nested  in  the  krantzes.  or  the  sighing  of  the 


28  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

wind  among  the  high  veld  grasses,  and  the  murmur  of  the 
little  river  playing  among  the  boulders  and  gurgling  between 
the  roots  of  the  tree-fern.  You  talked,  too,  and  told  her 
everything.  *  And  no  matter  how  bad  you  had  been,  though 
she  was  sorry,  because  she  hated  badness,  she  loved  you  just  as 
dearly  as  she  did  when  you  were  good.  And  oh!  how  you 
loved  her — how  you  loved  her! 

"  Please,"  you  said  that  night  when  she  came  first — you 
remember  it  quite  well,  though  it  is  so  long  ago — "  please,  why 
did  you  never  come  before?  " 

And  she  answered,  with  her  cool,  sweet,  fragrant  lips  upon 
your  eyelids,  and  your  head  upon  her  breast: 

"  Because  you  never  wanted  me  so  much  as  now." 

"  Please  take  me  back  home  with  you,"  you  said,  holding 
her  fast.  And  she  answered  in  the  voice  that  is  always  like 
the  sigh  of  the  wind  amongst  the  tree-tops  and  the  murmur 
of  the  river: 

"  I  cannot  yet — but  I  will  come  again." 

And  she  does  come,  and  again  and  again.  By  degrees, 
though  she  comes  to  you  only  at  night,  when  the  outhouse  is 
dark,  or  lighted  only  by  the  stars  or  the  moonshine,  you  learn 
exactly  what  the  Lady  is  like. 

She  wears  a  silken,  softly-rustling  gown  that  is  of  any  lovely 
colour  you  choose.  The  hue  of  the  blue  overarching  sky  at 
midday,  or  the  tender  rose  of  dawn,  or  of  the  violet  clouds 
that  bar  the  flaming  orange-ruby  of  the  sunset,  or  the 
mysterious  robe  of  twilight  drapes  her,  or  her  garment  sable  as 
the  Night.  The  grand  sweep  of  her  shoulders  and  the 
splendid  pillar  of  her  throat  reveal  the  beauty  of  her  form 
even  to  the  eyes  of  an  untaught,  neglected  child.  Her  face  is 
pale,  but  as  full  of  sunlight  as  of  shadow,  and  her  eyes  are 
really  grey  and  deep  as  mountain  lakes.  The  sorrow  of  all 
the  world  and  all  its  joy  seem  to  have  rolled  over  her  like 
many  waters,  and  when  she  smiles  the  sweetness  of  it  is  always 
almost  more  than  the  Kid  can  bear. 

Who  is  the  Lady? 

She  has  no  other  name  than  that.  She  is  very,  very  good,  as 
well  as  beautiful,  and  you  can  bear  to  tell  her  when  you  have 
been  most  wicked,  because  she  is  so  sorry  for  you.  She  can 
play  with  you,  and  laugh  .so  softly  and  clearly  and  gaily  that 
you,  who  have  never  learned  but  to  dread  grown  people's  cruel 
merriment,  join  in  and  laugh  too.  When  she  laughs  the 
corners  of  her  eyes  crinkle  so  like  the  corners  of  her  lips  that 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  29 

you  have  to  kiss  them,  and  there  are  dimples  that  come  with 
the  laughter,  and  make  her  dearer  than  ever. 

Who  is  the  Lady,  tall,  and  strong,  and  tender?  That  dead 
woman  lying  out  there  under  the  Little  Kopje  was  small,  and 
slight,  and  frail.  Who  may  the  Lady  be?  Is  she  a  dream 
or  a  mere  illusion  born  of  loneliness  and  starvation,  of  physical 
and  mental?  Or  has  Mary,  the  Mother  of  Pity,  laid  aside 
her  girdle  of  decades  of  golden  roses,  her  mantle  of  glory,  and 
her  diadem  of  stars,  and  come  stepping  fair-footed  down  the 
stairway  that  Night  builds  between  Earth  and  Heaven,  to 
comfort  a  desolate  child  lying  in  a  stable  who  never  heard  the 
story  of  the  Christ-Babe  of  Bethlehem? 

You  ask  no  questions — you  to  whom  she  comes.  You  call 
her  softly  at  night,  stretching  out  your  arms,  and  the  clasp  of 
her  arms  answers  at  once.  You  whisper  how  you  love  her, 
with  your  face  hidden  in  her  neck.  The  great  kind  Night  that 
brings  her  is  your  real,  real  daytime  in  which  you  live  and  are 
glad.  Each  morning  to  which  you  waken,  bringing  its  stint 
of  hunger  and  abuse  and  blows  renewed,  is  only  a  dreadful 
dream,  you  say  to  yourself,  and  so  can  face  your  world. 

Oh,  deep  beyond  fathoming,  mysterious  beyond  comprehen- 
sion is  the  hidden  heart  of  a  child  1 


VI 

ONE  afternoon  when  the  Kid  was  quite  as  tall  as  the  broom 
she  swept  the  stoep  with,  she  had  gone  to  the  drift  for  water. 
It  was  a  still,  bright,  hot  day.  Little  puffs  of  rosy  cloud  hung 
motionless  under  the  burning  blue  sky-arch;  small,  gaily- 
plumaged  birds  twittered  in  the  bushes;  the  tiny  black  ants 
scurried  to  and  fro  in  the  pinkish  sand  of  the  river  beach.  She 
waded  into  the  now  clean,  sherry-pale  water  to  cool  her  hot 
bare  limbs,  and,  bending  over,  stared  down  into  the  reflected 
eyes  that  looked  back  out  of  the  pool. 

Such  a  dirty  little,  large-eyed,  wistful  face,  crowned  by  a 
curling  tousle  of  matted,  reddish-brown-gold  hair.  Such  a 
neglected,  sordid  little  figure,  with  thin  drab  shoulders  sticking 
out  of  a  ragged  calico  frock.  She  was  quite  startled.  She 
had  never  seen  herself  in  any  glass  before,  though  a  cheap, 
square,  wooden-framed  mirror  hung  on  the  wall  of  the  bar- 
room, with  a  dirty  clothes-brush  on  a  hook  underneath,  and 
there  were  swing  toilet-glasses  in  the  bedrooms  at  the  inn. 


30  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

Something  stirred  in  her,  whispering  in  the  grimy  little  ear, 
"  //  is  good  to  be  clean"  and  with  the  awakening  of  the 
maidenly  instinct  the  womanly  purpose  framed. 

She  put  off  her  horrible  rags,  and  washed  herself  from  head 
to  foot  in  the  warm  clear  water.  She  took  fine  sand,  and 
scrubbed  her  head.  She  dipped  and  wrung  and  rinsed  her  foul 
tatters  of  garments,  standing  naked  in  the  shallows,  the  hot 
sunshine  drying  her  yellow  curls,  and  warming  her  slight  girl- 
ish body  through  and  through  as  she  spread  her  washed  rags  to 
dry  on  the  big  hot  stones. 

There  was  a  man's  step  on  the  bank  above  her,  there  was 
a  rustling  sound  among  the  green  bushes.  She  had  never  heard 
of  modesty,  but  she  cowered  down  among  the  boulders,  and 
the  heavy  footstep  passed  by.  She  hid  among  the  fern  while 
her  clothes  were  drying,  put  them  on  tidily,  and  went  back 
with  her  filled  water-bucket  to  the  hotel.  How  could  she 
know  what  injury  the  kind  peremptory  voice,  bidding  her  be 
foul  no  longer,  had  done  her?  But  thenceforward  a  new 
cruelty,  a  fresh  peril,  attended  her  steps. 

Bough  and  the  white  woman  of  the  inn  had  quarrels  often. 
She  was  no  wife  of  his.  He  had  not  brought  her  from  Cape 
Colony.  When  the  hotel  was  built  he  had  gone  up  to 
Johannesburg  on  business  and  on  pleasure,  and  brought  her 
back  with  him  from  an  establishment  he  knew.  He  was  gen- 
erally not  brutal  to  her  except  when  she  was  ailing,  when  he 
gave  her  medicine  that  made  her  worse,  much  worse — so  very 
ill  that  she  would  lie  groaning  upon  a  foul  neglected  bed  for 
weeks,  while  Bough  caroused  with  the  coloured  women  and  the 
customers  in  the  bar.  Then,  still  groaning,  she  would  drag 
herself  up  and  be  about  her  work  again.  She  did  not  want  t& 
go  back  to  the  house  at  Johannesburg.  She  loved  the  man 
Bough  in  her  fashion,  poor  bought  wretch. 

She  had  quarrelled  with  him  many  times  for  many  things, 
and  been  silenced  with  blows,  or  curses,  or  even  caresses,  were 
he  in  the  mood.  But  she  had  never  quarrelled  with  him  about 
the  Kid  before.  Now  when  he  bought  some  coloured  print 
and  a  Boer  sunbonnet,  and  some  shifts  and  stockings  of  a 
traveller  in  drapery  and  hosiery,  and  ordered  her  to  see  that 
the  girl  went  properly  clothed  thenceforward,  a  new  terror, 
a  fresh  torture,  was  added  to  the  young  life.  The  woman  had 
ignored,  neglected,  sometimes  ill-used  her,  but  she  had  never 
hated  her  until  now. 

And    Bough,    the   big,   burly4   dark-skinned   man   with   the 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  31 

strange  light  eyes,  and  the  bold,  cruel,  red  mouth,  and  the 
bushy  brown  whiskers,  why  did  he  follow  her  about  with  those 
strange  eyes,  and  smile  secretly  to  himself  ?  She  was  no  longer 
fed  on  scraps;  she  must  sit  and  eat  at  table  with  the  man  and 
his  mistress,  and  learn  to  use  knife  and  fork. 

She  outgrew  the  dress  Bough  had  bought  her,  and  another, 
and  another,  and  this  did  not  make  Bough  angry;  he  only 
smiled.  A  man  having  some  secret  luxury  or  treasure  locked 
away  in  a  secret  cupboard  will  smile  so.  He  knows  it  is  there, 
and  he  means  to  go  to  the  hiding-place  one  day,  but  in  the 
meantime  he  waits,  licking  his  lips. 

The  girl  had  always  feared  Bough,  and  shrunk  from  his 
anger  with  unutterable  terror.  But  the  blow  of  his  heavy 
hand  was  more  bearable  than  his  smile  and  his  jesting  amiabil- 
ity. Now,  when  she  Went  down  to  the  Kraals  on  an  errand, 
or  to  the  orchard  or  garden  for  fruit  or  vegetables,  or  to  the 
river  for  water  as  of  old,  she  heard  his  long,  heavy,  padding 
footsteps  coming  after  her,  and  would  turn  and  pass  him  with 
downcast  eyes,  and  go  back  to  the  inn,  and  take  a  beating  for 
not  having  done  her  errand.  Beating  she  comprehended,  but 
this  mysterious  change  in  the  man  Bough  filled  her  with  sick, 
secret  loathing  and  dread.  She  did  not  know  why  she  bolted 
the  door  of  the  outhouse  now  when  she  crept  to  her  miserable 
bed. 

Once  Bough  dropped  into  her  lap  a  silver  dollar,  saying  with 
a  smile  that  she  was  getting  to  be  quite  a  little  woman  of  late. 
She  leaped  to  her  feet  as  though  a  scorpion  had  stung  her, 
and  stood  white  to  the  very  lips,  and  speechless,  while  the  big 
silver  coin  rolled  merrily  away  into  a  distant  corner,  and  lay 
there.  The  frowzy  woman  with  the  bleached  hair  happened 
to  come  in  at  that  moment;  or  had  she  been  spying  through  a 
crack  of  the  door?  Bough  pretended  he  had  accidentally 
dropped  the  coin,  picked  it  up,  and  went  away. 

That  night  he  and  the  woman  quarrelled  fiercely.  She 
could  hear  them  raging  at  each  other  as  she  lay  trembling. 
Then  came  shrieks,  and  the  dull  sound  of  the  sjambok  cut- 
ting soft  human  flesh.  In  the  morning  the  woman  had  a 
black  eye;  there  were  livid  weals  on  her  tear-blurred  face.  She 
packed  her  boxes,  snivelling.  She  was  going  back  along  up  to 
Johannesburg  by  the  next  western-bound  transport-waggon- 
train  that  should  halt  at  the  hotel — thrown  off  like  an  old  shoe 
after  all  these  years.  And  she  was  not  young  enough  for  the 


32  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

old  life,  what  with  hard  work  and  hard  usage  and  worry,  and 
she  knew  to  whom  she  owed  her  dismissal.  .  .  . 

Ay,  and  if  she  could  have  throttled  or  poisoned  the  little 
sly  devil  she  would  have  done  it!  Only — there  would  .have 
been  Bough  to  reckon  with  afterwards.  For  of  God  she  made 
a  jest,  and  the  devil  was  an  old  friend  of  hers,  but  she  was 
horribly  afraid  of  the  man  with  the  brown  bushy  whiskers  and 
the  light,  steely  eyes.  Yet  she  threw  herself  upon  him  to  kiss 
him,  blubbering  freely,  when  at  the  week's  end  the  Johannes- 
burg transport-rider's  waggons,  returning  from  the  district 
town  not  yet  linked  up  to  the  north  by  the  railway,  came  in 
sight. 

Bough  poured  her  out  a  big  glass  of  liquor,  his  universal 
panacea,  and  another  for  the  transport-rider,  with  many  a 
jovial  word.  He  would  be  running  up  to  Johannesburg  before 
she  had  well  shaken  down  after  the  journey.  Then  they  would 
have  a  rare  old  time,  going  round  the  bars  and  doing  the 
shows.  Though,  perhaps  if  she  had  got  fixed  up  with  a  new 
friend,  some  flash  young  fellow  with  pots  of  money,  she  would 
not  be  wanting  old  faces  around? 

Then  he  turned  aside  to  pay  the  transport-rider,  and  the 
exile  dabbed  her  swollen  face  with  a  rouge-stained,  lace-edged 
handkerchief,  and  went  out  to  get  into  the  waggon. 

The  girl  stood  by  the  stoep,  staring,  puzzled,  overwhelmed, 
afraid.  A  piece  of  her  world  was  breaking  off.  As  long  as 
she  could  remember  anything  she  had  known  this  woman. 
She  had  never  received  any  kindness  from  her;  of  late  she  had 
been  malignant  in  her  hate,  but — she  wished  she  was  not  going. 
Instinctively  she  had  felt  that  her  presence  was  some  slight 
protection.  Keeping  close  in  the  shadow  of  this  creature's 
frowzy  skirts,  she  had  not  so  feared  and  dreaded  those  light 
eyes  of  Bough's,  and  the  padding,  following  footsteps  had  kept 
aloof.  As  the  woman  passed  her  now,  a  rage  of  unspeakable, 
agonizing  fear  rose  in  her  bosom.  She  cried  out  to  her,  and 
clutched  at  her  shabby  gay  mantle. 

The  woman  snatched  the  garment  from  her  hold.  Her  dis- 
torted mouth  and  blazing  eyes  were  close  to  the  white  young 
face.  She  could  have  spat  upon  it.  But  she  snarled  at  her 
three  words  ...  no  more,  and  passed  her,  and  got  into  the 
waggon. 

"  Hulloa,  there,"  said  Bough,  coming  forward  threateningly, 
"  what  you  rowing  about,  eh  ?  "  But  no  one  answered.  The 
girl  had  fled  to  the  boulder-cairn,  and  the  woman  sat  silent  in 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  33 

the  waggon,  until  the  weary,  goaded  teams  moved  on,  and  the 
transport-train  of  heavy,  broad-beamed  vehicles  lumbered  away. 

But  the  little  figure  on  the  cairn  of  boulders  covering  the 
dust  of  the  bosom  from  whence  it  had  first  drunk  life  sat 
there  immovable  until  the  sun  went  down,  pondering. 

"Missis  now,  eh!" 

What  did  those  three  words  mean? 

Then  Bough  called  her,  and  she  had  to  run.  She  served 
as  waitress  of  the  bar  that  day,  and  the  men  who  drove  or 
rode  by  and  stopped  for  drinks,  chatting  in  the  dirty  saloon, 
or  sitting  in  the  bare  front  room,  with  the  Dutch  stove,  and 
the  wooden  forms  and  tables  in  it,  that  they  called  the  coffee- 
room,  to  discuss  matters  relative  to  the  sale  of  cattle  or  mer- 
chandise, stared  at  her  hard,  and  several  made  her  coarse  com- 
pliments. She  refused  to  touch  the  loathly-smelling  liquor  they 
offered  her.  Her  heart  beat  like  a  little  terrified  bird's.  And 
she  was  horribly  conscious  of  those  light  blue  eyes  of 
Bough's  following,  following  her,  tvi'th  that  inscrutable  look. 

When  the  crowd  had  thinned  he  came  to  her.  He  caught 
her  arm,  and  pulled  her  near  him,  and  said  between  his  teeth: 

"  You  will  sleep  in  the  mistress's  room  to-night." 

Then  he  went  away  chuckling  to  himself,  thinking  of  that 
frightened  look  in  her  eyes.  Later,  he  went  out  on  horseback, 
and  did  -not  return. 

The  slatternly  bedchamber,  with  its  red  turkey  twill  win- 
dow-curtains and  cheap  gaud}'  wallpaper,  which  had  belonged 
to  the  ruddled  woman  with  the  bleached  hair,  was  a  palace 
to  the  little  one.  But  she  could  not  breathe  there.  Late  that 
night  she  rose  from  the  big  feather  bed,  and  unfastened  the 
window  shutters,  and  drew  the  blind  and  opened  the  window, 
though  the  paint  had  stuck,  and  looked  out  upon  the  veld. 
The  great  stars  throbbed  in  the  purple  velvet  darkness  over- 
head. The  falling  dew  wetted  the  hand  she  stretched  out 
into  the  cool  night  air.  She  drew  back  the  hand  and  touched 
her  cheek  with  it,  and  started,  for  the  fresh,  cool,  fragrant 
touch  seemed  like  that  of  some  other  hand  whose  touch  she 
once  had  known.  She  thought  for  the  first  time  that  if  the 
woman  who  had  been  her  mother,  and  who  slept  out  there 
in  the  dark  under  the  boulder-cairn,  had  lived,  she  might  have 
touched  her  child  so.  Then  she  closed  the  window  quickly, 
for  she  heard,  afar  off,  the  gallop  of  a  hard-ridden  horse  com- 
ing nearer — nearer.  And  she  knew  that.  Bough  was  coming 
back. 


34  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

He  came. 

She  heard  him  dismount  before  the  door,  give  the  horse  to 
the  sleepy  Basuto  ostler,  and  let  himself  into  the  bar.  She 
heard  him  clink  among  the  glasses  and  bottles.  She  heard  his 
foot  upon  the  stairs  and  upon  the  landing,  but  it  did  not  pass 
by.  It  stopped  at  the  locked  door  of  the  room  where  she  was. 

Then  his  voice  bade  her  rise  and  open  the  door.  She  could 
not  speak  nor  move. 

She  was  dumb  and  paralyzed  with  deadly  terror.  She  heard 
his  coaxing  voice  turn  angry;  she  listened  in  helpless  terrified 
silence  to  his  oaths  and  threats;  then  she  heard  him  laugh 
softly,  and  the  laugh  was  followed  by  the  jingle  of  a  bunch 
of  skeleton  keys.  He  always  carried  them ;  they  saved  trouble, 
he  used  to  say. 

They  saved  him  trouble  now.  When  the  bent  wire  rattled 
in  the  lock,  and  the  key  fell  out  upon  the  floor,  she  screamed, 
and  his  coarse  chuckle  answered.  She  was  cowering  against 
the  wall  in  a  corner  of  the  room  when  he  came  in  and  picked 
up  the  key  and  locked  the  door.  But  when  his  stretched-out, 
grasping  hand  came  down  upon  her  slight  shoulder,  she  turned 
and  bit  it  like  some  savage,  desperate  little  animal,  drawing  the 
blood.  Bough  swore  at  the  sudden  sting  of  the  sharp  white 
teeth.  So  the  little  beast  showed  fight,  eh?  Well,  he  would 
teach  her  that  the  master  will  have  his  way. 

There  was  no  one  else  in  the  house,  and  if  there  had  been 
it  would  have  served  her  not  at  all.  God  sat  in  timeless 
Eternity  beyond  these  mists  of  earth,  and  saw,  and  made  no 
sign.  It  was  not  until  the  man  Bough  slept  the  heavy  sleep 
of  liquor  and  satiety  that  the  thought  of  flight  was  born  in 
her  with  desperate  courage  to  escape  him.  The  shutters  had 
been  left  unbolted,  and  the  window  was  a  little  way  open.  She 
sprang  up  and  threw  it  wide,  leaped  out  upon  the  stoep,  and 
from  thence  to  the  ground,  and  fled  blindly,  breathlessly  over 
the  veld  into  the  night. 

VII 

BOUGH,  as  soon  as  it  was  dawn,  sent  three  of  the  Kaffirs 
from  the  Kraals,  in  different  directions,  to  search  for  her,  and, 
mounted  on  a  fresh  pony,  took  the  fourth  line  of  search  him- 
self. 

He  had  chosen  the  right  direction  for  riding  down  the 
quarry.  At  broad  high  noon  he  came  upon  her,  in  a  bare, 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  35 

stony  place  tufted  with  milk-bush.  She  was  crouching  under  a 
prickly-pear  shrub,  that  threw  a  distorted  blue  shadow  on  the 
sun-baked,  sun-bleached  ground,  trying  to  eat  the  fruit  in  the 
native  way  with  two  sticks.  But  she  had  no  knife,  and  her 
mouth  was  bleeding.  Bough  gave  the  tired  pony  both  spurs 
when  the  prey  he  hunted  came  in  sight.  She  leaped  up  like 
a  wild  cat  when  the  mounted  man  rode  dow*n  upon  her,  and 
ran,  doubling  like  a  hare.  When  overtaken,  she  fell  upon  her 
face  in  the  sand,  and  lay  still,  only  shaken  by  her  long  pants. 
Bough  dismounted  and  caught  her  by  the  wrist  and  dragged 
her  up  with  his  bandaged  right  hand.  He  beat  her  about  her 
cheeks  with  his  hard,  open  left.  Then  he  threw  her  across  his 
saddle,  but  she  writhed  down,  and  lay  under  the  pony's  feet. 

He  kicked  her  then,  for  giving  so  much  trouble,  lifted  her 
again,  and  tried  to  mount,  holding  her  in  one  arm.  But  the 
frightened  pony  swerved  and  backed,  and  the  girl  shrieked, 
and  struggled,  and  shrieked  like  a  wild  cat.  She  did  not  know 
what  mercy  meant,  but  she  saw  by  the  look  that  came  into 
those  light  eyes  that  this  man  wbuld  have  none  upon  her. 
She  fought  and  bit  and  shrieked  like  a  wild  cat. 

He  took  an  ox-reim  then,  that  was  coiled  behind  his  saddle, 
and  bound  her  hands.  He  tied  the  end  of  the  leather  rope  to 
the  iron  ring  behind  his  saddle,  and  remounted,  and  spurred 
his  weary  beast  into  a  canter.  The  little  one  was  forced  to 
run  behind.  Again  and  again  she  fell,  and  each  time  she  was 
jerked  up  and  forced  to  run  again  upon  her  bleeding  feet, 
leaving  rags  of  her  garments  upon  the  karoo-bushes  and  blood- 
marks  on  the  stones.  And  at  last  she  fell,  and  rose  no  more, 
showing  no  sign  of  life  under  the  whip  and  the  spur-rowel. 
Then  Bough  bent  over  and  drew  his  long  hunting-knife  and 
cut  the  reim,  leaving  her  hands  still  bound.  If  any  spark  of 
life  remained  in  the  girl,  he  could  not  tell.  Her  knees  were 
drawn  in  towards  her  body;  her  eyes  were  open,  and  rolled 
upwards;  there  was  foam  upon  her  torn  and  bleeding  mouth. 
She  was  as  good  as  dead,  anyway,  and  the  wild  dogs  would  be 
sure  to  come  by-and-by.  Already  an  aasvogel  was  hovering 
above;  a  mere  speck,  the  great  bird  poised  upon  widespread 
wings,  high  up  in  the  illimitable  blue. 

Presently  there  would  be  a  flock  of  these  carrion  feeders, 
that  are  not  averse  to  fresh-killed  meat  when  it  is  to  be  had. 

Bough  remounted,  and,  humming  a  dance  tune  that  was 
often  on  his  lips,  rode  away  over  the  veld. 

The  great  vulture  wheeled.     Then  he  dropped  like  a  falling 


36  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

stone  for  a  thousand  yards  or  so,  and  hovered  and  dropped 
again,  getting  nearer — ever  so  much  nearer — with  each  descent. 
And  where  he  had  hovered  at  the  first  were  now  a  dozen 
specks  of  black  upon  the  hot,  bright  blue. 

A  wild  dog  crept  down  from  a  cone-topped  spitzkop,  and 
stood,  sniffing  the  blood-tainted  air  eagerly,  whining  a  little 
in  its  throat. 

The  great  vulture  dropped  lower.  His  comrades  of  the 
flock,  eagerly  following  his  gyrations  and  descents,  had  begun 
to  wheel  and  drop  also.  Another  wild  dog  appeared  on  the 
cone-shaped  kop.  Other  furry,  sharp-eared  heads,  with  eager, 
sniffing  noses,  could  be  seen  amongst  the  grass  and  bush. 

Then  suddenly  the  higher  vultures  rose.  They  wheeled 
and  soared  and  flew,  a  hurrying  bevy  of  winged  black  specks 
to  the  north.  They  had  seen  something  approaching  over  the 
veld.  The  great  bird  hanging  motionless,  purposeful,  lower 
down  became  aware  of  his  comrades'  change  of  tactics.  With 
one  downward  stroke  of  his  powerful  wings,  he  shot  upwards, 
and  with  a  hoarse,  croaking  cry  took  flight  after  the  rest. 

The  wild  dogs  stole  back,  hungry,  to  covert,  as  a  big  "light 
blue  waggon,  drawn  by  a  well-fed  team  of  eight  span,  came 
lumbering  over  the  veld. 

Would  the  ox-team  veer  in  another  direction?  Would  the 
big  blue  waggon  with  the  new  white  tilt  roll  by  ? 

The  Hottentot  driver  cracked  his  giant  whip,  and,  turning 
on  the  box-seat,  spoke  to  a  figure  that  sat  beside  him.  It  was 
a  woman  in  loose  black  garments,  with  a  starched  white  coif 
like  a  Dutchwoman's  kapje,  covered  with  a  floating  black  veil. 
At  her  side  dangled  and  clashed  a  long  rosary  of  brown  wooden 
beads,  with  a  copper  crucifix  attached.  There  were  two  other 
women  in  the  big  waggon,  dressed  in  the  same  way.  They 
were  Roman  Catholic  nuns — Sisters  of  Mercy  coming  up  from 
Natal,  by  the  order  of  the  Bishop  of  Bellmina,  Vicar- Apostolic, 
at  the  request  of  the  Bishop  of  Paracos,  suffragan  to  North- 
East  Baraland,  to  swell  the  numbers  of  the  Community  already 
established  in  Gueldersdorp  at  the  Convent  of  the  Holy  Way. 

The  oxen  halted  some  fift)r  yards  from  that  inanimate  ragged 
little  body,  lying  prone,  face  downwards,  among  the  scrubby 
bushes  that  sprouted  in  the  hot  sand.  Little  crowding  tiny 
ants  already  blackened  the  bloodstains  on  the  ground,  and  the 
wild  dogs  would  not  have  stayed  long  from  the  feast  if  the 
waggon  had  passed  on. 

One  white-coifed,  tall,  black-clad  figure  sprang  lightly  down 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  37 

from  the  waggon-box,  and  hurried  across  to  where  the  body 
was  lying.  A  mellow,  womanly  cry  of  pity  came  from  under 
the  starched  coif.  She  turned  and  beckoned.  Then  she  knelt 
down  by  the  girl's  side,  opened  the  torn  garments,  and  felt  with 
compassionate,  kindly  touches  about  the  still  heart. 

The  other  two  black  figures  came  hurrying  over  then, 
stumbling  amongst  the  stones  and  karoo-bushes  in  their  haste. 
Lifting  her,  they  turned  the  white,  bloodless  young  face  to 
the  blue  sky.  It  was  cut  and  scratched,  but  not  otherwise 
disfigured.  Her  bound  arms,  dragged  upwards  before  it,  had 
shielded  it  from  the  thorns  and  the  sharp  stones.  They  were 
raw  from  the  elbows  to  the  wrists. 

They  listened  at  the  torn  childish  bosom  with  anxious  ears. 
They  got  a  few  drops  of  brandy  between  the  clenched  little 
teeth.  The  sealed  lips  quivered;  the  heart  fluttered  feebly, 
like  a  dying  bird.  They  gave  her  more  stimulant,  and  waited, 
while  the  Hottentot  driver  dozed,  and  the  sleek,  well-fed  oxen 
chewed  the  cud  patiently,  standing  in  the  sun. 

Then  the  Sisters  lifted  her,  with  infinite  care,  and  carried 
her  to  the  waggon.  The  long  kangaroo  lash  cracked,  and 
the  patient  beasts  moved  on.  Very  soon  the  big  white  tilt 
was  a  mere  retreating  speck  upon  the  veld.  The  ants  were 
still  busy  when  the  wild  dogs  came  out  and  sniffed  regretfully 
at  those  traces  on  the  ground. 

Coincidence,  did  you  say,  lifting  your  eyebrows  over  the 
book,  as  the  blue  waggon  of  the  Sisters  rolled  lumbermgly  into 
the  story?  The  long  arm  of  coincidence  stretched  to  aching 
tenuity  by  the  dramatist  and  the  novelist!  Nay!  but  the  thing 
happened,  just  as  I  have  told. 

What  is  the  thing  we  are  agreed  to  call  coincidence? 

Once  I  was  passing  over  one  of  the  bridges  that  span  the 
filthy  London  ditch  called  the  Regent's  Canal.  I  had  walked 
all  the  way  from  Piccadilly  Circus  to  the  Gloucester  Gate, 
haunted  by  the  memory  of  a  man  I  had  once  known.  He  was 
the  broken-down,  drunken,  studio-drudge  of  a  great  artist,  a 
splendid  Bohemian,  who  had  died  some  years  before.  Why 
did  the  thought  of  the  palette-scraper,  the  errand-goer,  the 
drunken  creature  with  the  cultivated  voice  and  the  ingratiating, 
gentlemanly  manners,  haunt  me  as  I  went?  I  thought  of  his 
high,  intellectual,  pimply  forehead,  and  large  benevolent  nose, 
in  a  chronic  state  of  inflammation,  and  seedy  semi-clerical  garb, 
for  the  thing  had  been  an  ordained  clergyman  of  the  Church 
of  England,  and  I  grinned,  remembering  how,  when  a  Royal 


38  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

visitor  was  expected  at  the  great  man's  studio,  the  factotum 
had  been  bidden  to  wash  his  face,  and  had  washed  one-half 
of  it,  leaving  the  other  half  in  drab  eclipse,  like  the 
picture-restorers'  trade  advertisement  of  a  canvas  partially 
cleansed. 

Idly  I  tossed  the  butt  of  that  spoiled  cigar  over  the  bridge 
balustrade.  Idly  my  eye  followed  it  down  to  the  filthy,  slug- 
gishly-creeping water  that  flows  round  the  bend,  under  the 
damp  rear-garden  walls  below. 

A  policeman  and  a  bargeman  were  just  taking  the  body  of 
an  old  man  out  of  that  turbid  canal-stream.  It  was  dressed  in 
pauper's  garments,  and  its  stiffened  knees  were  bent,  and  its 
rigid  elbows  crooked,  and  a  dishonoured,  dripping  beard  of 
grey  hung  over  the  soulless  breast. 

The  dreadful  eyes  were  open,  staring  up  at  the  leaden  March 
sky.  His  face,  with  the  dread  pallor  of  Death  upon  it,  and 
the  mud-stains  wiped  away  by  a  rough  but  not  unkindly  hand, 
was  cleaner  that  I  had  ever  seen  it  in  life. 

Because  he  was  the  very  man  the  thought  of  whom  had 
haunted  me,  the  great  Bohemian  painter's  drunken  studio- 
drudge. 

VIII 

SCHOOL  at  the  Convent  of  the  Holy  Way  at  Gueldersdorp 
was  breaking  up  suddenly  and  without  warning,  very  soon 
after  the  beginning  of  the  Christmas  term.  Many  of  the 
pupils  had  already  left  in  obedience  to  urgent  telegrams  from 
relatives  in  Cape  Colony  or  in  the  Transvaal,  and  every  Dutch 
Igirl  among  the  sixty  knew  the  reason  why,  but  was  too  astute 
'to  hint  of  it,  and  every  English  girl  was  at  least  as  wise,  but 
pn'de  kept  her  silent,  and  the  Americans  and  the  Germans  ex- 
changed glances  of  intelligence,  and  whispered  in  corners  of 
impending  war  between  John  Bull  and  Oom  Paul. 

That  deep  and  festering  political  hatreds,  fierce  enthusiasm, 
hot  pride  of  race,  and  lofty  pride  in  nationality,  were  covered 
by  worked  apron-bibs,  and  even  childish  pinafores,  is  anyone 
likely  to  doubt?  Schoolgirls  can  be  patriots  as  well  as  rebels, 
and  the  seminary  can  vie  with  the  college,  if  not  outdo  it, 
occasion  given.  Ask  Juliette  Adam  whether  the  bread-and- 
butter  misses  of  France  in  the  year  1847  did  not  squabble  over 
the  obstinacy  of  King  Louis  Philippe  and  the  greed  of  M. 
Guizot,  the  claims  of  Louis  Napoleon  and  the  theories  of  Louis 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  39 

Blanc,  of  Odilon  Barrot,  and  Ledru  Rollin.  And  I  who  write, 
have  I  not  seen  a  North  Antrim  Sunday-school  wrecked  in  a 
faction-fight  between  the  Orange  and  the  Green.  Lord!  how 
the  red-edged  hymnals  and  shiny-covered  S.P.G.  books  hustled 
through  the  air,  to  burst  like  hand-grenades  upon  the  texted 
•walls.  In  vain  the  panting,  crimson  clergyman  mounted  the 
superintendent's  platform,  and  strove  to  shed  the  oil  of  peace 
upon  those  seething  waters.  Even  the  class-teachers  had 
broken  the  rails  out  of  the  Windsor  chair-backs,  and  joined 
the  hideous  fray,  irrespective  of  age  or  sex. 

"  Miss  Malcney — Miss  Geoghegan — I  am  shocked — 
appalled!  In  the  name  of  decency  I  command  yees  to  desist. 
.  .  .  Hit  him  again,  Moggy  Lenahan,  a  taste  lower  down. 
Serve  you  right,  Mulcahy!  why  would  you  march  with  the 
Green?" 

Thirty  years  ago.  As  I  gaped  in  affright  at  the  hideous 
scene  of  strife,  small  revengeful  fingers  twisted  themselves 
viciously  in  my  auburn  curls,  and  wresting  from  my  grasp 
a  "  Child's  Own  Bible  Concordance,"  a  birthday  outrage  re- 
ceived from  an  Evangelical  aunt,  Julia  Dolan,  aged  twelve, 
began  to  pound  me  about  the  face  with  it.  As  a  snub-nosed 
urchin,  gifted  with  a  marvellous  capacity  for  the  cold  storage 
and  quick  delivery  of  Scripture  genealogies  and  Hebrew  proper 
and  improper  names,  I  had  often  reduced  my  mild,  long- 
legged  girl-neighbour  to  tearful  confusion.  Now  meek  Julia 
seemed  as  though  possessed  by  seven  devils.  I  had  been  taught 
the  elementary  rule  that  boys  must  not  hurt  girls,  but  the  code 
had  no  precept  helpful  in  the  present  instance,  when  a  girl  was 
hurting  me.  Casting  chivalry  to  the  winds,  I  remember  that 
I  kicked  Julia's  shins,  and  she  fled  howling;  but  not  before  she 
had  reduced  my  leading  feature  to  a  state  of  ruin,  which 
created  a  tremendous  sensation  when  they  led  me  home.  Later, 
during  the  election  riots,  two  young  girls,  modest,  well-behaved 
lasses  as  ever  stepped,  fought  in  the  Market  Place,  stripped  to 
the  waist,  and  wielding  boards  wrenched  from  the  side  of  a 
packing-case,  heavy,  jagged,  and  full  of  nails.  And  when  the 
soldiers  were  called  out,  we  know  how  many  a  saddle  was 
emptied  by  the  stones  the  women  threw.  "C'r'ips!  "  as  Billy 
Keyse  would  have  said. 

Only  a  day  previously  the  centipede-like  procession  of  girls 
of  all  ages,  in  charge  of  nuns  and  pupil-teachers,  serpentining 
over  the  Gueldersdorp  Recreation-Ground  in  search  of  the 
exercise  essential  to  clearness  of  the  complexion  and  the  sharp- 


40  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

ening  of  the  Intelligence,  had  sustained  an  experience  with 
which  every  maiden  bosom  would  have  been  still  vibrating  had 
not  an  event  even  more  exciting  occurred  between  the  early 
morning  roll-call  and  prayers-muster  and  breakfast. 

Greta  Du  Taine  had  had  another  love-letter! 

The  news  darted  from  class-room  to  class-room  more  quickly 
than  little  Monsieur  Pilotell,  the  French  literature  professor; 
it  spread  like  the  measles,  and  enlarged  like  the  mumps. 

The  Red  Class,  composed  of  the  elder  girls,  "  young  ladies  " 
who  were  undergoing  the  process  of  finishing,  surged  with 
volcanic  excitement,  hidden,  but  not  in  the  least  repressed. 
The  White  Class,  their  juniors,  who  were  chiefly  employed  in 
preparing  for  confirmation,  should  have  been  immersed  in 
graver  things,  but  were  not.  They  waited  on  mental  tiptoe 
for  details,  and  a  peep  at  the  delicious  document.  The  Blue 
Class,  as  became  mere  infants  ranging  from  six  to  ten  years 
old,  remained  phlegmatically  indifferent  to  the  missive,  yet 
avid  for  samples  of  the  chocolates  that  had  accompanied  the 
declaration,  made  to  eighty  girls  of  all  ages  by  one  undersized, 
pasty,  freckled  young  man  employed  as  junior  clerk  and  chance 
assistant  in  a  surveyor's  office,  and  who  signed  at  the  end  of  a 
long  row  of  symbolistic  crosses  the  unheroic  name  of  Billy 
Keyse. 

He  had  seen  and  been  helplessly  stunned  by  the  vision  of 
Greta  Du  Taine  out  walking  at  the  head  of  the  long  serpentine 
procession  of  English,  German,  Dutch,  Dutch-French,  Dutch- 
American,  and  Jewish  girls.  They  are  sent  now  to  be  taught 
in  Europe,  these  daughters  of  the  Rand  millionaires,  the  Stock 
Exchange  speculators,  the  wealthy  fruit-farmers,  or  cereal- 
growers,  or  cattle  and  sheep  breeders,  who  are  descended  them- 
selves from  the  old  pioneers  and  voortrekkers,  but  they  do  not 
get  a  better  education  than  was  to  be  had  at  the  Convent 
school  at  Gueldersdorp,  where  the  Sisters  of  Mercy  took  in 
and  taught  and  trained  coltish  girl-children,  born  in  a  strongly 
stimulating  climate,  and  accustomed  to  lord  it  over  Kaffir  and 
Hottentot  servants  to  their  hearts'  content.  These  they  tamed, 
these  they  transformed  into  refined,  cultivated,  accomplished 
young  women,  stamped  with  the  indefinable  seal  of  high  breed- 
ing, possessed  of  the  tone  and  manner  that  belongs  to  the  upper 
world. 

What  shall  I  say  of  the  Sisters  of  the  Convent  of  the  Holy 
Way  at  Gueldersdorp,  I  who  know  but  little  of  any  Order  of 
Religious?  They  are  a  community,  chiefly  of  ladies  of  high 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  41 

breeding  and  ancient  family,  vowed  to  feed  the  hungry,  clothe 
the  naked,  nurse  the  sick,  comfort  the  dying,  and  instruct  the 
ignorant.  Like  the  Fathers  of  the  Society  of  Jesuits,  those 
skilled,  patient,  wise  tillers  in  the  soil  of  the  human  mind,  their 
daily  task  is  to  hoe  and  tend,  and  prune  and  train,  and  water 
the  young  green  things  growing  in  what  to  them  is  the  Garden 
of  God,  and  to  other  good  and  even  holy  people,  the  vineyard 
of  the  devil.  Possibly  both  are  right? 

I  have  heard  the  habit  of  the  Order  called  ugly.  But  upon 
the  stately  person  of  the  Mother  Superior  the  garb  was  regal. 
The  sweeping  black  folds  were  as  imposing  as  imperial  purple, 
and  the  starched  gimple  framed  a  beauty  that  was  grave,  stern, 
almost  severe  until  she  smiled,  and  then  you  caught  your 
breath,  because  you  had  seen  what  great  poets  write  of,  and 
great  painters  try  to  render,  and  only  great  musicians  by  their 
impalpable,  mysterious  tone-art  can  come  nearest  to  conveying 
— the  earthly  beauty  that  has  been  purged  of  all  grosser 
particles  of  dross  in  the  white  fires  of  the  Divine  Love.  She 
was  not  altogether  perfect,  or  one  could  not  have  loved  her  so. 
Her  scorn  of  any  baseness  was  bitterly  scathing;  the  point  of 
her  sarcasm  was  keen  as  any  thrusting  blade  of  tempered  steel ; 
her  will  was  to  be  obeyed,  and  was  obeyed  as  sovereign  law, 
else  woe  betide  the  disobedient.  Also,  though  kind  and 
gracious  to  all,  tenderly  solicitous  for,  and  incessantly  watchful 
of,  the  welfare  of  the  least  of  her  charges,  she  never  feigned 
where  she  could  not  feel  regard  or  love.  Her  rare  kiss  was 
coveted  in  the  little  world  of  the  Convent  school  as  the  jewel 
of  an  Imperial  Order  was  coveted  in  the  bigger  world  outside 
it,  and  the  most  rebellious  of  the  pupils  held  her  in  respect 
mingled  with  fear.  The  head-mistresses  of  the  classes  had 
their  followers  and  admirers.  It  was  for  the  Mother  Superior 
to  command  enthusiasm,  and  to  sway  these  young  ambitions, 
and  to  govern  the  hearts  and  minds  of  children  with  the  per- 
sonal charm  and  the  intellectual  powers  that  could  have  ruled 
a  nation  from  a  throne. 

Well,  she  has  gone  to  God.  It  is  good  for  many  souls  that 
she  lived  upon  earth  a  little.  She  has  a  harvest,  not  of  tares, 
to  gather  when  earth's  fields  are  ripe  for  the  blade.  There 
was  nothing  sentimental,  visionary,  or  hysterical  in  her  char- 
acter. Nor,  in  giving  her  great  heart  with  her  pure  soul  to 
God,  did  she  ever  quite  learn  to  scorn  and  despise  the  sweet- 
ness of  earthly  love.  Not  all  a  Saint.  The  children  of  those 
wcmen  who  most  were  swayed  by,  her  influence  in  youth  have 


42  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

been  taught  to  hold  her  Saint  as  well  as  Martyr.  And  there 
is  One  Who  knows. 

It  was  not  until  recess  after  the  midday  dinner  that  Greta 
Du  Taine  could  exhibit  her  love-letter.  She  was  a  Transvaal 
Dutch  girl  with  old  French  blood  in  her,  a  vivacious,  sparkling 
Gallic  champagne  mingling  with  the  Dopper  in  her  dainty  blue 
veins.  Nothing  could  be  prettier  than  Greta  in  a  good  temper, 
unless  it  might  be  Greta  in  a  rage.  She  was  in  a  good  temper 
now,  as,  tossing  back  her  superb  golden  hairplait,  as  thick  as 
a  child's  arm,  and  nearly  four  feet  long,  she  drew  a  smeary 
envelope  from  the  front  of  her  black  alpaca  school-dress,  and, 
delicately  withdrawing  the  epistle  enclosed,  yielded  the  en- 
velope for  the  inspection  of  the  Red  Class, 

"  What  niggly  writing !  "  objected  Nellie  Bliecker,  wrinkling 
her  snub  nose  in  the  disgust  that  masks  the  gnawing  tooth  of 
«nvy. 

"  And  the  envelope  is  all  over  sticky  brown,"  said  another 
carping  critic. 

"  That's  because  he  put  the  letter  inside  the  chocolate-box," 
explained  Greta,  "  inside  of  outside.  And  the  best  chocolates 
— the  expensive  ones — always  so  squashy.  Only  the  cheap 
ones  don't  melt — because  they  have  got  stuff  like  chalk  inside. 
Kut  wait  till  I  show  you  as  much  as  the  envelope  of  my  next 
letter— that's  all,  Julia  K.  Shaw1!  " 

Julia  K.  wilted.     Greta  proceeded: 

"  It's  directed  '  To  My  Fair  Addored  One/  because,  of 
course,  he  didn't  know  my  name.  I  don't  object  to  his  putting 
a  d  too  much  in  adored ;  I  rather  prefer  it.  His  own  name  is 
simple,  and  rather  pretty."  She  made  haste  to  say  that,  be- 
cause she  felt  doubtful  about  it.  "  Billy  Keyse." 

"Billy?" 

"Billy  Keyse?" 

"B-i-1-l-y  K-e-y-s-e!" 

The  name  went  the  round  of  the  Red  Class.  Nobody 
liked  it. 

"  He  must,  of  course,  have  been  christened  William. 
Shakespeare  was  a  William.  The  Emperor  of  Germany," 
stated  Greta  proudly,  "  is  a  William.  Mr.  Pitt  and  Mr. 
Gladstone  were  both  Williams.  Many  other  great  men  have 
been  Williams." 

"  But  not  Billies,"  said  Christine  Silber,  provoking  a  giggle 
from  the  greedily-listening  Whites. 

Greta  scorched  them  into  silence  with  a  look,  and  continued: 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  43 

"  He  is  by  profession  a  surveyor,  not  exactly  a  partner  in 
the  firm  of  Gadd  and  Saxby,  on  Market  Square,  but  something 
very  near  it."  Do  you  who  read  see  W.  Keyse  carrying  the 
chain  and  spirit-level,  and  sweeping  out  the  office  when  the 
Kaffir  boy  forgets  ?  "  He  saw  me  walking  in  the  Stad  with  the 
Centipede." 

This  was  a  fanciful  name  for  the  whole  school  of  eighty 
pupils  promenading  upon  a  hundred  and  sixty  legs  of  various 
nationalities  in  search  of  exercise  and  fresh  air. 

"  Go  on ! "  said  the  Red  Class  in  a  breath,  as  the  White 
Class  giggled  and  nudged  each  other,  and  the  Blue  Class 
opened  eyes  and  ears. 

"  He  was  knocked  dumb-foolish  at  once,  he  says,  by  my 
eyes  and  my  figure  and  my  hair.  He  is  not  long  up  from 
Cape  Colony:  came  out  from  London  through  chest-trouble, 
to  catch  heart-trouble  in  Gueldersdorp "  ( do  you  see  hectic, 
coughing  Billy  Keyse  cracking  his  stupid  joke?).  "And  if 
I'll  only  be  engaged  to  him,  he  promises  to  get  rich,  become  as 
big  a  swell  on  the  Rand  as  Marks  or  Du  Taine — isn't  that 
funny,  his  not  knowing  Du  Taine  is  my  father? — and  drive 
me  to  race-meetings  on  a  first-class  English  drag,  with  a  team 
of  bays  in  silver-mounted  harness,  with  rosettes  the  colour  of 
my  eyes." 

Greta  threw  her  golden  head  back  and  laughed,  displaying 
a  double  row  of  enviable  pearls. 

"  But  I've  got  to  wait  for  all  these  things  until  Billy  Keyse 
strikes  pay-reef.  Poor  Billy!  Hand  over  those  chocolates, 
you  greedy  things !  " 

Somebody  wanted  to  know  how  the  package  had  been 
smuggled  into  the  Convent.  Those  lay-Sisters  were  so 
sharp.  .  .  . 

"  They're  perfect  needles — Sister  Tarsesias  particularly,  and 
Sister  Tobias.  But  there's  a  new  Emigration  Jane  among 
the  housemaids.  You've  seen  her — the  sallow  thing  with  the 
greasy  light-coloured  bang  in  curlers,  who  walks  flat-footed 
like  a  wader  on  the  mud.  I  keep  expecting  to  hear  her  quack. 
.  .  .  Well,  Billy  got  hold  of  her.  She  didn't  know  my  name, 
being  new,  but  she  recognised  me  by  Billy's  description,  and 
sympathised  with  him,  having  a  young  man  herself,  who 
doesn't  speak  a  word  of  English,  except  '  damn '  and  '  Three  of 
Scotch,  please.'  I've  promised  to  translate  her  letters;  he 
writes  them  in  the  Taal.  And  Billy  gave  her  two  dollars, 
and  I've  given  her  a  hat.  It's  the  big  red  one  mother  brought 


44  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

back  from  Paris — paid  a  hundred  francs  for  it  at  the  Maison 
Cluny — and  Emigration  Jane  thinks,  though  it's  a  bit  too 
quiet  for  her  taste,  it'll  do  her  a  fair  old  treat  when  she  trims 
it  up  with  a  bit  more  colour  and  one  or  two  '  imitation 
ostridge '  tips.  ...  I'd  give  another  hundred  francs  for  the 
Maison  Cluny  modiste  to  hear."  Again  the  birdlike  laugh 
rang  out.  "  Now  you  know  everything  there  is  in  the  letter, 
girls,  except  the  bit  of  poetry  at  the  end,  which  only  my  most 
intimate  friends  may  be  permitted  to  read.  Lynette  Mildare!  " 

Lynette,  bending  over  a  separate  table  in  the  light  of  the 
north  window  of  the  long  deal  match-boarded  class-room, 
looked  up  from  her  work  of  tooling  leather,  the  delicate  steel 
instrument  in  her  hand,  a  little  gilding-brush  between  her 
white  teeth,  a  little  fold  of  concentrated  attention  between 
her  slender  brown  eyebrows. 

"Yes.     Did  you  want  anything?" 

Greta  jumped  up,  leaving  the  rest  of  the  box  of  chocolates 
to  dissolve  among  the  White  Class,  and  came  over,  threading 
her  way  between  the  long  rows  of  desk-stalls. 

"  Of  course  I  want  something." 

"What  is  it?"  asked  Lynette,  laying  down  the  little  tool. 

"  What  everyone  has  a  right  to  expect  from  the  person  who 
is  her  dearest  friend — sympathy,"  said  Greta,  jumping  up  and 
sitting  on  the  corner  of  the  desk,  and  biting  the  thick  end  of 
her  long  flaxen  pigtail. 

"  You  have  it — when  there  is  anything  to  sympathise  about. " 

Greta  tapped  the  letter,  trying  to  frown. 

"  Do  you  call  this  nothing?  " 

"You  have  saved  me  from  doing  so." 

"Lynette  Mildare,  have  you  a  heart  inside  you?" 

"  Certainly ;  I  can  feel  it  beating,  and  it  does  its  work  very 
well." 

"Am  I,  then,  nothing  to  you?" 

Lynette  smiled,  looking  up  at  the  piquant,  charming  face. 

"  You  are  a  great  deal  to  me." 

"  And  I  regard  you  as  a  bosom-friend.  And  the  duty  of 
a  bosom-friend,  besides  rushing  off  at  once  to  tell  you  if  she 
hears  anybody  say  anything  nasty  of  you  behind  your  back — 
a  thing  which  you  never  do — is  to  sympathise  with  you  in  all 
your  love-affairs — a  thing  which  you  do  even  seldomer." 

Greta  stamped  with  the  toe  of  her  dainty  little  shoe  that 
rested  on  the  beeswaxed  boards  of  the  class-room,  and  kicked 
the  leg  of  the  desk  with  the  heel  of  the  other. 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  45 

"  Please  don't  spill  the  white  of  egg,  or  upset  the  gold-leaf. 
And  as  I  shall  be  pupil-teacher  of  the  youngest  class  next  term, 
I  suppose  I  ought  to  tell  you  that  '  seldomer '  isn't  in  the  Eng- 
lish dictionary." 

"  I'm  glad  of  it.  I  like  my  own  words  to  belong  to  me,  my 
own  self.  I  should  be  ashamed  to  owe  everything  I  say  to 
silly  Nuttall  or  stupid  old  Webster.  You're  artful,  Lynette 
Mildare,  trying  to  change  the  conversation.  I  say  you  don't 
sympathise  with  me  properly  in  my  affairs  of  the  heart — and 
you  never,  never  tell  me  about  yours." 

The  beautiful  black-rimmed,  golden-tawny  eyes  laughed  as 
some  eyes  can,  though  there  was  no  quiver  of  a  smile  about 
the  purely-modelled,  close-folded  lips. 

"  Don't  tell  me  you  never  have,  or  never  had,  any,"  scolded 
Greta.  "  You're  too  lovely  by  half.  Don't  try  to  scowl  me 
down — you  are!  I'm  pretty  enough  to  make  the  Billy  Keyses 
stand  on  their  silly  heads  if  I  told  them  to,  but  you're  a  great 
deal  more.  Also,  you  have  style  and  grace  and  breeding. 
Anybody  could  tell  that  you  came  of  tremendously  swell  people 
over  away  in  England,  where  the  Dukes  and  Marquesses  and 
Earls  began  fencing  in  the  veld  somewhere  about  the  eleventh 
century,  to  keep  common  people  from  killing  the  deer,  or  carv- 
ing their  vulgar  names  on  the  castle  walls,  and  coming  between 
the  wind  and  their  nobility.  There's  a  quotation  from  your 
dear  Shakespeare  for  you !  He  does  come  in  handy  sometimes." 

"  Doesn't  he !  "  agreed  Lynette,  with  an  ardent  flush. 

"  And  you're  descended  from  some  of  the  people  he  wrote 
about,"  pressed  Greta.  "Own  it!  " 

There  was  a  faint  line  of  sarcasm  about  the  lovely  lips. 

"  Shakespeare  wrote  of  clowns  and  churls  as  well  as  of 
Kings  and  noblemen." 

"  If  you  were  a  clown,  you  wouldn't  be  what  you  are.  The 
very  shape  of  your  head,  and  ears,  and  nails,  bespeaks  a 
Princess,  disguised  as  a  finished  head-pupil,  going  to  take  over 
a  class  of  grubby-fingered  little  ones — pah! — next  term.  And 
don't  we  all  know  that  an  English  Duchess  sends  you  your 
Christmas  and  Easter  and  birthday  gifts!  Come,  you  might 
as  well  speak  out,  when  this  is  my  last  term,  and  we  have 
always  been  such  dear  friends,  and  always  will  be,"  coaxed 
Greta,  "because  the  Duchess  lets  you  out,  you  know!" 

She  said  it  so  quaintly  that  Lynette  laughed,  though  there 
was  a  pained  contraction  between  the  delicate  eyebrows  and  a 
vexed  and  sorrowful  shadow  on  her  face.  Greta  went  on: 


46  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

"  We  have  all  of  us  always  known  that  you  were — a 
mystery.  Has  it  got  anything  to  do  with  the  Duchess?  " 

The  round,  shallow  blue  eyes  were  too  greedily  curious  to 
be  pretty  at  the  moment.  Lynette  met  them  with  a  full, 
grave,  answering  denial. 

"  No ;  I  am  nothing  to  the  Duchess  of  Broads,  or  she  to 
me.  She  is  sister  to  the  Mother-Superior,  and  she  sends  to 
me  at  Christmas  and  Easter,  and  on  birthdays,  by  the  Mother's 
wish.  Doesn't  the  Mother's  second  sister,  the  Princess  de 
,  Digny-Veziers,  send  Kati'e  " — Katie  was  a  little  Irish  novice — 
"presents  from  Paris  twice  a  year?" 

Greta's  pretty  eyebrows  shot  up.  Her  blue  greedy  eyes 
became  circular  with  surprise. 

"  Yes,  of  course — out  of  charity,  because  Katie  was  a 
foundling,  picked  up  in  the  Irish  quarter  in  Cape  Town." 

Lynette  went  on  steadily,  but  looking  out  of  the  window 
at  the  purple  wistaria  that  climbed  upon  the  angle  of  the  Con- 
vent wing  in  which  were  the  nuns'  cells. 

"  If  Katie  was  a  foundling,  I  am  nothing  better." 

"  Lynette  Mildare,  you're  never  in  earnest  ?  " 

The  shocked  tone  and  the  scandalised  disgust  on  Greta's 
pretty  face  stung  and  hurt.  But  Lynette  went  on: 

"  I  speak  the  truth.  The  Mother  and  the  Sisters,  who  have 
always  known  it,  have  kept  the  secret.  In  their  great  con- 
siderate kindness,  they  have  never  once  let  me  feel  there  was 
any  difference  between  me  and  the  other  girls — not  once  in  all 
these  years.  And  I  can  never  thank  them  enough — never  be 
grateful  enough  for  their  great  goodness — especially  hers." 
The  steady  voice  shook  a  little. 

"  We  all  know  that  you  have  always  been  the  Mother's 
favourite."  There  was  a  little  cool  inflection  of  contempt  in 
Greta's  high,  sweet,  birdlike  tones  that  had  been  lacking  be- 
fore. "And  she  is  the  niece  of  a  great  English  Cardinal,  and 
the  sister  of  a  Duchess  and  Princess,  and  her  step-brother  is  an 
Earl."  The  inflection  added  for  Greta:  And  yet  she  turns 
to  the  charity  child! 

Lynette  said  in  a  low  voice: 

"  It  is  because  she  is  perfect  in  the  way  of  humility.  She 
is  beyond  all  pride  .  .  .  greater  than  all  prejudice  .  .  .  she 
has  been  more  to  me  than  I  can  say,  since  she  and  Sister 
Ignatius  and  Sister  Tobias  found  me  on  the  veld  seven  years 
ago  when  they  were  trekking  up  from  Natal  to  join  the  Sisters 
who  were  already  working  here." 


47 

Greta's  face  dimpled,  and  the  bright,  cold  eyes  grew  greedy 
again.  There  was  a  romance,  after  all. 

"  My  gracious!  How  did  you  get  there?  Did  your  people 
lose  you,  or  had  you  run  away  from  home?  " 

The  delicate  wild-rose  colour  sank  out  of  Lynette's  cheeks. 
Her  eyes  sank  under  those  bold,  curious,  blue  ones  of  Greta's. 
She  said,  with  a  painful  effort: 

"  I — had  run  away  from  the  place  that  was  called  my  home. 
I  don't  remember  ever  having  lived  anywhere  else  before." 

"My!     And  .  .  .?" 

"  It  was  a — dreadful  place."  A  little  convulsive  shudder 
Tippled  through  the  girl's  slight  frame.  Little  points  of 
moisture  showed  upon  the  delicate  white  temples,  where  the 
little  stray  rings  and  tendrils  clung  of  the  red-brown  hair.  "  I 
wore  worse  rags  than  the  children  at  the  native  Kraals,  and 
was  worse  fed.  I  scrubbed  floors,  and  fetched  water,  and 
was  beaten  every  day.  Then  " — she  drew  a  deep,  quivering 
breath — "  I  ran  away — and — and  ran  until  I  could  run  no 
more,  and  fell  down.  ...  I  don't  remember  being  picked  up. 
I  awoke  one  day  here  at  the  Convent ;  and  I  was  in  bed,  and 
my  hair  was  cut  short,  and  there  was  ice  upon  my  head.  I 
said,  '  Where  am  I  ?  '  and  the  Mother-Superior  stooped  down 
and  looked  into  my  eyes,  and  said,  'You  are  at  home.'  And 
the  Convent  has  been  nr*  home  ever  since,  and  I  hope  with  all 
my  heart  it  always  will  be." 

Greta  descended  from  the  desk.  She  drew  her  embroidered 
cambric  skirts  primly  about  her,  and  said  in  a  shocked  voice: 

"And  I  asked  you  to  visit  me — to  come  and  stay  with  us 
at  our  place  near  Johannesburg — you  wrho  are  not  even  respect- 
able!" 

Lynette  grew  burning  red.  One  moment  her  eyes  wavered 
and  fell.  Then  she  lifted  them  and  looked  back  bravely  into 
the  pretty,  shallow,  and  blue  eyes. 

'  That  is  why  I  have  told  you — what  you  know  now." 

"  Of  course,"  Greta  said  patronizingly,  "  if  you  wish  it,  I 
shall  not  tell  the  class." 

Lynette  deliberately  put  away  her  tools  and  the  calf-bound 
volume  she  had  been  working  on,  and  shut  and  locked  her 
desk.  Then  she  rose.  Her  eyes  swept  over  the  long  room, 
its  lower  end  packed  with  giggling,  whispering,  squabbling, 
listening,  gossiping,  or  reading  girls.  She  said  very  clearly: 

"  It  will  be  best  that  you  should  tell  the  class.  Do  it  now. 
They  can  think  it  over  while  they  are  away,  and  make  up 


48  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

their  minds  whether  they  will  speak  to  me  or  not  when  they 
come  back.  Make  no  delay." 

Then  she  went,  moving  with  the  long,  smooth,  light  step 
and  upright,  graceful  carriage  that  she  had  somehow  caught 
from  the  Mother-Superior,  out  of  the  room.  Curious  eyes 
followed  her;  eager  ears,  that  had  caught  fragments  of  the 
colloquy,  wanted  the  rest;  eager  tongues  plied  Greta  with 
questions,  as  she  stood  reticent,  knowing,  bursting  with  in- 
formation withholden,  in  the  middle  of  the  class-room,  where 
honours  she  coveted  had  been  won  and  prizes  gained  by  the 
Convent  foundling. 

You  may  be  sure  that  Greta  told  the  story.  It  lost  nothing 
by  her  telling,  be  equally  sure.  But  all  that  heard  it  did  not 
take  it  in  Greta's  way.  The  stamp  of  the  woman  who  ruled 
this  place  was  upon  many  minds  and  intellects  and  hearts 
here,  and  her  teaching  was  to  bear  fruit  in  bitter,  stormy, 
bloodstained  years  of  days  that  were  waiting  at  the  very 
threshold. 

"  I  tell  you,"  said  Christine  Silber,  the  handsome  Jewess, 
with  a  fierce  flash  of  her  black  Oriental  eyes,  "  foundling  or 
charity  girl,  or  whatever  else  you  choose  to  call  her,  Lynette 
Mildare  is  the  pride  of  the  school." 

Silber 's  father  was  President  of  the  Gisenfontein  Legislative 
Council.  A  hum  of  assent  followed  .n  her  utterance,  and  an 
English  girl  got  upon  a  form.  She  was  the  niece  of  a  High 
Commissioner,  daughter  of  a  Secretary  of  Imperial  Govern- 
ment, at  Cape  Town,  who  wrote  K.C.M.G.  after  his  name. 

"  Silber  speaks  the  truth.  Not  a  girl  here  is  a  patch  on  the 
shoes  of  Mildare.  I  am  going  home  to  London  next  winter 
to  be  presented,  and  we  shall  have  a  house  in  Chesterfield 
Gardens  for  the  season,  and  if  Lynette  will  come  and  visit  us, 
I  can  tell  her  that  she  will  be  treated  as  an  honoured  guest. 
As  for  you,  Greta  Du  Taine,  who  are  always  bragging  about 
your  father  and  his  money,  tell  me  what  three  letters  of  the 
alphabet  you  would  find  tattooed  upon  his  conscience — if  the 
strongest  microscope  ever  made  could  find  his  conscience  out? 
Shall  I  tell  you  them?"  She  held  up  her  finger.  "Shall  I 
tell  you  how  he  bought  those  orange-groves  at  Rustenburg — 
and  the  country  seat  near  Johannesburg — and  the  drag  with 
the  silver-mounted  harness  and  the  team  of  blood  bays  ?  " 

"  No,  please !  "  begged  Greta,  flinching  from  the  torture. 

But  the  English  girl  was  pitiless.  She  checked  the  letters 
off  upon  her  fingers: 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  49 

"  I.  D.  B." 

A  shout  went  up  from  the  Red  Class. 

Greta  turned  and  ran. 

IX 

THE  cell  was  a  large,  light,  airy  room  on  the  first-floor  of  the 
big  two-storied  Convent  building  that  stood  in  its  spacious, 
tree-shaded,  high-fenced  gardens  beyond  the  Hospital  at  the 
north  end  of  the  town.  Light-stained  wood-presses  full  of 
papers  and  account-files  covered  the  wall  upon  one  side.  There 
also  stood  a  great  iron  safe,  with  heavy  ledgers  piled  upon  it. 
Upon  the  other  three  sides  of  the  room  were  bookshelves,  doubly 
and  trebly  laden,  with  Latin  tomes  of  the  Fathers  of  the 
Church,  and  the  works  and  writings  of  modern  theologians, 
many  of  them  categorized  upon  the  "  Index  Expurgatorius." 
Rows  there  were  of  English,  French,  German,  Italian,  and 
Spanish  classical  authors,  and  many  volumes  of  recently-pub- 
lished scientific  works.  It  might  have  been  the  room  of  a 
business  man  who  was  at  the  same  time  a  priest  and  a  scholar. 
There  were  maps  upon  the  walls,  and  one  or  two  engravings. 
Bougereau's  "  Virgin  of  Consolation,"  the  "  Madonna  del  An- 
sidei "  of  Raffaello,  and  a  great  "  Crucifixion  "  over  the 
chimneypiece,  which  had  three  little  statuettes  in  tinted  alabas- 
ter— a  St.  Ignatius  at  one  end,  a  St.  Anthony  of  Padua  at  the 
other;  in  the  middle,  the  Virgin  bearing  the  Child. 

The  Mother-Superior  sat  writing  at  a  bare  solid  deal  table 
of  the  kitchen  kind,  with  stained  legs  to  add  to  its  ugliness, 
and  stained  black-knobbed  fronts  to  the  drawers  in  it.  Her  pen 
flew  over  the  paper. 

Seated  though  she  was,  you  could  see  her  to  be  of  noble  fig- 
ure, tall  and  finely  proportioned.  The  habit  of  the  nun  does 
not  hide  everything  that  makes  for  beauty  and  for  grace.  The 
pure  outlines  of  the  small,  perfectly-shaped  head  showed 
through  the  thin  black  veil  that  falls  over  the  white  starched 
coif.  The  small,  high-instepped  foot  could  not  be  hidden  in 
walking;  the  make  of  the  thick  shoe  might  not  disguise  its 
form.  The  delicate  whiteness  and  smooth,  supple  beauty  of 
her  hands,  larger  than  the  hands  of  ordinary  women,  their 
owner  being  of  more  heroic  build,  as  of  ampler  mind  and  keener 
intellect,  betrayed  her  to  be  a  woman  not  yet  old,  though  there 
were  some  deep  lines  and  many  fine  ones  on  the  attentive  face 
that  bent  over  the  large  square  sheet  of  paper. 


50  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

It  was  a  curious  face;  its  olive  skin  bleached  to  dull  white- 
ness, its  expression  stern  almost  to  severity.  I  have  heard  it 
likened  to  a  Westmorland  hill-landscape.  Lonely  tarns  lie 
under  the  black  brows  of  the  precipice;  one  feels  chilly,  and  a 
little  afraid.  But  the  sun  shines  out  suddenly  from  behind 
mist,  and  behold!  everything  is  transformed  to  loveliness.  I 
can  in  no  other  words  describe  the  change  wrought  in  her  by 
her  rare,  sudden,  illuminating  smile.  Her  voice  was  the  softest 
and  the  clearest  I  ever  heard,  a  sigh  made  most  audible 
speech;  but  in  her  just  anger,  only  turned  to  wrath  by  the 
baser  faults,  the  fouler  vices,  it  could  roll  in  organ-tones  of 
thunder,  or  ring  like  a  silver  clarion.  And  her  eye  made  the 
lightning  for  such  thunder,  and  the  sword-thrust  that  followed 
the  clarion-note  of  war. 

She  could  have  ruled  an  empire  or  a  court,  this  woman  who 
managed  the  thronged,  buzzing  Convent  with  the  lifting  of 
her  finger,  with  the  softest  tone  of  her  soft  West  of  Ireland 
voice,  devoid  of  all  trace  of  the  unbeautiful  brogue,  cultured, 
elegant,  refined.  I  can  only  write  of  her  as  I  knew  her.  As  I 
have  said,  the  lessons  that  she  taught  bore  great  fruit  during 
that  red  time  of  war  that  Was  coming,  and  will  bear  greater 
fruit  hereafter. 

A  little  is  known  to  me  of  the  personal  history  of  Lady 
Bridget-Mary  Bawne — in  religion  known  as  Mother  Mary  of 
Nazareth — that  may  be  here  set  down.  Some  twenty-three 
years  previously  that  devout  Irish  Catholic  nobleman,  the 
Right  Honourable  James  Dominic  Bawne,  tenth  Earl  of  Cas- 
tleclare,  Baron  Kilhail,  Count  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire, 
and  D.L.  for  West  Connemara,  not  contented  with  the  pos- 
session of  three  very  tall,  very  handsome,  very  popular  daugh- 
ters— the  Ri'ght  Honourable  Lady  Bridget-Mary,  Lady  Alyse, 
and  Lady  Alethea  Bawne — consulted  his  spiritual  director,  and, 
as  advised,  offered  his  thin  white  hand  and  piously  regulated 
affections  to  Miss  Nancy  Mclleevy,  niece  and  heiress  of  Mc- 
Ileevy  of  Mclleevystown,  the  eminent  County  Down  brewer, 
so  celebrated  for  his  old  Irish  ale  and  nourishing  bottled  porter. 

This  lady,  being  sufficiently  youthful,  of  good  education 
and  manners,  and  of  like  faith  with  her  elderly  wooer,  under- 
took, in  return  for  an  ancient  name  and  the  title  of  Countess 
Castleclare,  to  find  the  widower  in  conjugal  affection  for  the 
rest  of  his  mortified  life,  and  to  do  her  best  to  supply  him 
with  the  grievously-needed  heir.  There  was  no  wicked  fairy 
at  Lord  Castleclare's  wedding,  distinguished  by  the  black- 


browed  beauty  of  the  three  bridesmaids,  his  daughters;  and 
two  years  later  saw  the  beacons  at  the  entrance  of  Ballybawne 
Harbour,  on  the  West  Connemara  coast,  illuminated  by  the 
Castleclare  tenants  in  honour  of  the  arrival  of  the  desired 
heir,  upon  whom  before  his  birth  so  much  wealth  had  been  ex- 
pended by  Lord  Castleclare  in  pilgrimages,  donations,  founda- 
tions, and  endowments  that,  some  months  after  it,  his  lord- 
ship conveyed  to  his  three  daughters  that,  in  the  interests  of  the 
Viscount,  to  whose  swollen  gums  a  gold-set  pebble  enclosing 
a  pious  relic  of  an  early  Christian  martyr  was  at  that  moment 
affording  miraculous  relief,  he,  their  father,  would  be  obliged 
by  their  providing  themselves  as  soon  as  possible  with  husbands 
of  suitable  rank,  corresponding  religion,  and  sufficient  means 
to  dispense  with  the  customary  marriage  portion. 

Lady  Alyse  saw  the  justice  of  her  father's  views,  and  married 
the  Duke  of  Broads,  an  English  Catholic  peer;  her  younger 
sister,  Alethea,  went  obediently  to  the  altar  with  the  aged  and 
enormously  wealthy  Prince  de  Dignmont-Veziers.  Lady  Bridget- 
Mary  Bawne,  eldest  and  handsomest  of  the  three,  pleaded — if 
a  creature  so  stormy  and  imperious  could  be  said  to  plead — a 
previous  engagement  to  an  Ineligible. 

"  We  have  all  heard  of  Captain  Mildare  of  the  Grey  Hus- 
sars, my  dear  child,"  said  Lord  Castleclare,  going  to  the  door 
to  make  sure  that  those  shrieks  that  had  proceeded  from  the 
Viscount's  sumptuous  suite  of  apartments,  situated  at  the  top  of 
the  staircase  rising  at  the  end  of  the  corridor  leading  from  his 
father's  library,  were  stilled  at  the  maternal  fountain.  Find- 
ing that  it  was  so,  he  ambled  back  to  the  centre  of  the  worn 
Bokhara  rug  that  had  been  under  the  prie-Dieu  in  the  oratory 
of  James  I,  at  Dublin  Castle,  and  resumed:  "We  have  all 
heard  of  Captain  Mildare.  At  the  taking  of  AH  Musjid — 
arah! — at  Futtehabad,  with  Gough — arah! — and  at  Ahmed 
Khel,  where  Stewart  cut  up  the  Afghans  so  tremendously, 
Mildare  earned  great  distinction  as  well  as  the  Victoria  Cross, 
which  I  am  delighted  to  see,  in  glancing  through  the  Army  and 
Navy  Gazette,  Her  Majesty  has  been  pleased  to  confer  upon 
him.  As  a  gentleman  and  a  soldier  he  presents  all  that  is  de- 
sirable; as  a  member  of  an  old  Catholic  family,  he  does  not 
command  my  suffrages.  But  as  the  husband  of  my  elder 
daughter  I  cannot  look  upon  a  younger  son  with — toleration. 
Honourable  reputation  is  much,  bravery  is  much,  but  my  son- 
in-law  must  possess — arah ! — other — other  qualifications."  The 
old  gentleman  stuttered  pitiably. 


52  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

"  One  other  qualification,  you  mean,  father,  if  that  term 
can  be  given  to  the  possession  of  a  certain  amount  of  money," 
said  Lady  Bridget-Mary,  standing  very  straight  and  looking 
very  proudly  at  her  father.  "  Will  you  object  to  telling  me 
plainly  for  how  much  you  would  be  content  to  sell  your  stock, 
with  goodwill  ?  " 

Lord  Castleclare  was  a  thin,  frail,  courtly  old  gentleman, 
who  had  conquered,  he  humbly  trusted,  all  his  passions,  except 
the  passion  for  ancient  Theological  Fathers  and  the  passion 
for  Spanish  snuff.  But  he  was  stung  by  the  irony.  He  spilt 
quite  a  quantity  of  choice  mixture  over  the  long,  ivory-yellow 
nail  of  his  lean,  delicate  thumb  as  he  looked  consciously  aside 
from  the  great  scornful  grey  eyes  that  judged  and  questioned 
and  condemned  him  as  a  mercenary  old  gentleman.  And  he 
caught  himself  wishing  that  this  fine  fiery  creature  had  been 
born  a  boy.  He  looked  back  again  at  his  eldest  daughter. 
Her  white  arms  were  folded  upon  her  bosom,  her  pearl-coloured 
silk  evening  gown  swept  aside  from  the  fire,  to  whose  warmth 
she  held  an  arched  and  exquisite  foot.  Her  noble  head,  with 
its  rich  coronet  of  silken  black  coils,  was  bent ;  her  white  bosom 
had  ceased  to  be  stormy.  With  a  half-dreamy  smile  upon  her 
beautiful  firm  mouth,  she  was  looking  at  a  green  flashing  ring 
she  wore  on  the  third  finger  of  her  left  hand.  And  the  sight 
of  her  so  sent  a  sudden  pang  of  remembrance  leaping  through 
the  old  man's  heart.  He  forgot  his  spoiled  pinch  of  snuff,  and 
stepped  over  to  her,  and  took  the  hand,  and  looked  at  the  em- 
erald ring  with  her  in  silence. 

"  My  dear  daughter,"  he  said,  more  simply  and  more  sweetly 
than  Lady  Bridget-Mary  had  ever  heard  him  speak  before,  "  I 
think  you  love  this  brave  gentleman  sincerely." 

His  daughter's  large,  beautifully-shaped  hand  closed  strongly 
over  the  old  ivory  fingers.  The  great  brilliant  dark  grey  eyes 
looked  at  him  through  a  sudden  mist  of  tears,  though  she  lifted 
her  head  and  held  it  high.  She  said  in  a  low,  clear  voice: 

"  Father,  you  remember  how  my  mother  loved  you  ?  And 
Richard  is  as  dear  to  me  as  you  were  to  her.  I  want  words 
when  it  comes  to  speaking  of  so  great  a  thing  as  the  love  I 
feel  for  him.  But  it  is  my  life.  ...  I  seem  to  breathe  with 
his  breath,  and  think  his  thoughts,  and  speak  with  his  voice, 
since  we  found  out  our  secret,  and  we  are  each  other's  for  Time 
and  for  Eternity."  Then  she  added,  with  a  lovely  smile  that 
had  a  touch  of  humour  in  it :  "  And  he  will  be  quite  content 
to  take  me  with  only  my  share  of  mother's  money." 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  53 

"Tschah!"  said  the  old  father.  "Nonsense!  Of  course, 
Ballybawne  will  be  delighted  to  provide  for  you.  Excuse 
me  ...  I  must  go." 

Ballybawne,  in  the  Castleclare  nursery,  had  set  up  another 
squeal. 

Thenceforward  the  course  of  true  love  might  have  been  ex- 
pected to  run  smoothly  for  Lady  Bridget-Mary  and  her  gallant 
lover.  But  she  had  reckoned,  not  without  her  host,  but  with- 
out her  Grey  Hussar.  In  love  there  is  always  one  who  loves 
the  most,  and  Lady  Bridget-Mary,  that  fine,  enthusiastic, 
tempestuous  creature,  was  far  from  realizing  that  she  was  less 
to  her  Richard  than  he  was  to  her.  The  reason  was  not 
farther  to  seek  than  a  few  doors  off  in  London,  when  the  Ladies 
Bawne  occupied  their  sombre  old  corner  house  in  Grosvenor 
Square.  It  was  Lady  Bridget-Mary's  dearest  Lucy  and  bosom- 
friend  who  had  married  that  handsome,  grey-moustached  mar- 
tinet, Richard's  Colonel.  In  Lady  Lucy  Hawting's  drawing- 
room  Lord  Castleclare's  elder  daughter  had  met  Captain 
Mildare,  the  hero  of  Futtehabad  and  Ahmed  Khel.  The 
Colonel's  wife  was  a  pretty,  delicate,  graceful  creature,  some 
three  years  older  than  her  black-browed  handsome  friend,  and 
much  more  learned,  as,  of  course,  befitted  a  married  woman, 
in  the  ways  of  the  world.  And  Lady  Lucy  saw  the  budding 
of  young  Passion  in  the  heart  of  her  friend  .  .  .  and  it  oc- 
curred to  her  that  it  would  furnish  a  very  excellent  excuse  for 
the  constant  presence  of  Captain  Mildare,  if  ...  !  the  sweet- 
est and  most  limpid  women  have  their  turbid  depths,  their 
muddy  secrets — and  she  had  confided  everything  to  dearest 
Bridget,  except  the  one  thing  that  mattered! 

Well!  We  all  know  for  what  reason  Le  Roi  Soleil  ad- 
dressed himself  to  the  wooing  of  La  Valliere.  Louis  fell  gen- 
uinely in  love  with  the  decoy,  not  quite  so  Richard.  But  some- 
times, when  those  proud  lips  meekly  gave  back  his  kisses,  and 
that  lofty  beauty  humbled  itself  to  meet  his  will,  he  almost 
wished  that  he  had  never  met  the  other.  A  day  came  when  the 
secret  orchard  he  had  joyed  in  with  that  other  was  threaded 
with  a  golden  clue,  and  the  hidden  bower  unveiled  to  the  cold- 
eyed  staring  day. 

Captain  Mildare  and  Lady  Lucy  Hawting  went  away  to- 
gether, and  from  Paris  Richard  wrote  and  broke  to  the  girl  who 
loved  him,  and  had  been  his  betrothed  wife,  the  common,  vulgar, 
horrible  little  truth.  Bridget-Mary  had  been  deceived  by  both 
of  them  from  the  very  beginning.  Estimate  the  numbing, 


54  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

overwhelming  weight  of  that  blow,  delivered  by  a  hand  so 
beloved,  upon  so  proud  a  heart.  Those  who  saw  her,  and 
should  have  honoured  her  great  grief  with  decent  reticence, 
say  that  she  was  mad  for  a  while;  that  she  grovelled  on  the 
earth  in  her  abandonment,  calling  upon  God  to  be  merciful 
and  kill  her.  Pass  over  this.  I  cannot  bear  for  one  to  think 
that  the  mere  love  of  a  man  should  bring  that  lofty  head  so 
low. 

While  the  scandal  lived  in  the  mouths  of  Society,  Lady 
Bridget-Mary  Bawne  remained  unseen.  She  was  pitied — oh, 
burning,  intolerable  shame!  She  was  commiserated  as  a  cat's- 
paw,  and  sneered  at  as  a  dupe.  Her  sisters  and  her  step- 
mother, her  father  and  her  seven  aunts,  her  relatives,  innumer- 
able as  stars  in  the  Milky  Way,  found  infinite  relish  in  the 
comfortable  conviction  that  every  one  of  them  had  said  from 
the  very  outset  that  Bridget-Mary  would  regret  the  step  she 
had  taken  in  engaging  herself  to  that  Captain  Mi'ldare.  Sharp 
claws  of  steel  were  added  to  her  scourge  of  humiliation  by  a 
thousand  petty  liberties  taken  with  this,  her  great,  sacred  sor- 
row, as  by  letters  of  sympathy  from  friends,  who  wrote  as  if 
she  had  suffered  the  loss  of  a  pet  hunter,  or  a  prize  Persian 
cat. 

A  suitor  ventured  to  propose  for  that  white  rejected  hand, 
addressing  himself  with  stammering  diffidence  to  Lord  Castle- 
clare.  A  young  man,  the  son  of  an  industrious  father  who 
had  consolidated  the  sweat  of  his  brow  into  three  millions  and 
a  Peerage,  hideously  conscious  of  the  raw  newness  of  his  title ; 
painfully  burdened  with  the  bosom-weight  of  a  genuine,  if  in- 
coherent love,  he  seemed  to  Lady  Bridget-Mary's  family  toler- 
able, almost  desirable,  nearly  quite  the  thing.  .  .  . 

"  He  has  boiled  jam  into  sweetness  for  the  whole  civilized 
world,"  said  the  most  influential  and  awful  of  Lord  Castle- 
clare's  seven  sisters,  a  Dowager-Duchess  who  was  Lady-in- 
Waiting,  and  exhaled  the  choicest  essence  of  the  Middle  Vic- 
torian era.  She  still  adhered  to  the  mushroom-shaped  straw 
hats  of  her  youth,  trimmed  with  black  velvet  rosettes,  in  the 
centre  of  each  of  which  reposed  a  cut  jet  button.  She  went 
always  voluminously  clad  in  black  or  shot-silk  gowns,  their 
skirts  so  swelled  out  by  a  multiplicity  of  starched  cambric  pet- 
ticoats, adorned  with  tambour-work,  that  she  was  credited  with 
the  existence  of  a  crinoline.  She  had,  in  marrying  her  now  de- 
funct Scots  Duke,  embraced  Presbyterianism,  and  though  her 
brother  believed  her,  as  far  as  the  next  world  was  concerned, 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  55 

to  be  lost  beyond  redemption,  he  entertained  for  her  judgment 
in  the  matters  of  this  planet  a  great  esteem. 

"  He  has  boiled  jam  enough  to  spread  over  the  surface  of 
the  civilized  globe,  and  now  proposes  to  hive  its  concentrated 
extract  for  the  benefit  of  our  dearest  girl,  in  the  shape  of  a 
settlement  that  a  Princess  of  the  blood  might  envy.  I  call 
the  whole  thing  pretty,"  pronounced  the  Dowager,  "  almost 
romantic,  or  it  might  be  made  to  sound  so  if  a  person  of  su- 
perior intelligence  and  tact  would  undertake  to  plead  for  the 
young  man.  His  terrible  title  has  quite  escaped  me.  Lord 
Plumbanks?  Thank  you!  It  might  have  been  Strawberry- 
beds,  and  that  would  have  increased  our  difficulty.  No  time 
should  be  lost.  Therefore,  as  you,  dear  Castleclare,  with  your 
wife  and  the  boy,  who,  I  am  gratified  to  hear,  has  cut  another, 
are  going  to  Rome  for  Holy  Week,  perhaps  you  would  wish  me 
in  your  absence  to  break  the  ice  with  Bridget-Mary  ?  " 

Lord  Castleclare's  long,  solemn  face  and  arched,  lugubrious 
eyebrows  bore  no  little  resemblance  to  the  well-known  portrait 
of  the  conscientious  but  unlucky  Stuart,  in  whose  service  his 
ancestor  had  shed  blood  and  money,  receiving  in  lieu  of  both  a 
great  many  Royal  promises,  the  Eastern  carpet  that  had  be- 
longed to  the  monarch's  Irish  oratory,  and  the  fine  sard  Intaglio, 
brilliant-set,  and  representing  a  Calvary,  that  loyal  servant's 
descendant  wore  upon  his  thin  ivory  middle  finger.  He  twid- 
dled the  ring  nervously  as  he  said: 

"  She  has  gone  into  Lenten  Retreat  at  a  Convent  in  Kensing- 
ton. I — arah! — I  do  not  think  it  would  be  advisable  to  dis- 
turb salutary  and  seasonable  meditations  with — arah! — worldly 
matters  at  this  present  moment." 

"Fiddle-faddle!"  said  the  Dowager  Duchess  sharply. 

Lord  Castleclare  lifted  the  melancholy  viaduct  arches  of  his 
eyebrows  in  exhortation. 

'  Fiddle-faddle,'  my  dear  Constantia?  " 

"  You  have  the  expression !  "  said  she.  "  Young  women  of 
Bridget-Mary's  age  and  temperament  will  think  of  marriage 
in  convents  as  much  as  outside  them.  Further,  I  dread  delay, 
entertaining  as  I  do  the  very  certain  conviction  that  this  weak- 
minded  man  who  has  thrown  your  daughter  over  will  be  back, 
begging  Bridget-Mary  to  forgive  him  and  reinstate  him  in 
the  possession  of  her  affections  before  another  two  months  are 
over  our  heads.  That  little  cat-eyed,  squirrel-haired  woman 
he  has  run  away  with,  and  against  whom  I  have  warned  our 
poor  dear  girl  times  out  of  number  " — she  really  believed  this 


56  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

— "  is  the  sort  of  pussy,  purring  creature  to  make  a  man  feel 
her  claws,  once  she  has  got  him.  Therefore,  although  my  fam- 
ily may  not  thank  me  for  it,  I  shall  continue  to  repeat,  '  No 
time  is  to  be  lost!'  Still,  in  deference  to  your  religious  prej- 
udices, and  although  I  never  heard  that  the  Catholic  Church 
prohibited  jam  as  an  article  of  Lenten  diet,  we  will  defer  from 
offering  Bridget-Mary  the  pot  until  Easter." 

But  Easter  brought  the  news  that  Lady  Bridget-Mary  had 
decided  upon  taking  the  veil,  and  begged  her  father  not  to 
oppose  her  wishes.  The  Dowager-Duchess  rushed  to  the  Ken- 
sington Convent.  .  .  .  All  the  little  straw-mats  on  the  slippery 
floor  of  the  parlour  were  swept  like  chaff  before  the  hurricane 
of  her  advancing  petticoats  as  she  bore  down  upon  the  most 
disappointing,  erratic,  and  self-willed  niece  that  ever  brought 
the  grey  hairs  of  a  solicitous  and  devoted  aunt  in  sorrow  to 
the  grave,  demanding  in  Heaven's  name  what  Bridget-Mary 
meant,  by  this  maniacal  decision.  Then  she  drew  back,  for  at 
first  she  hardly  credited  that  this  tall,  pale,  quiet  woman  in  the 
plain,  close-fitting,  black  woollen  gown  could  be  Bridget-Mary 
at  all.  Realizing  that  it  could  be  nobody  else,  she  began  to 
cry  quite  hysterically,  subsiding  upon  a  Berlin  woolwork  cov- 
ered sofa,  while  her  niece  rang  the  bell  for  that  customary  Con- 
vent restorative,  a  teaspoonful  of  essence  of  orange-flower  in 
a  glass  of  water,  and  returning  to  the  side  of  her  agitated  rela- 
tive, took  her  hand, ,  encased  in  a  tight  one-button  puce  glove, 
saying: 

"Dear  Aunt  Constantia,  what  is  the  use  of  crying?  I  have 
done  with  it  for  good." 

"  You  are  so  dreadfully  changed  and  so  awfully  composed, 
and  I  always  was  sensitive.  And,  besides,  to  find  you  like  this 
when  I  expected  you  to  break  your  head  upon  the  floor — or  was 
it  against  the  wall,  they  said? — and  pray  to  be  put  out  of  your 
misery  by  poison,  or  revolver,  or  knife,  as  though  anybody 
would  be  wicked  enough  to  do  it  .  .  ." 

A  faint  stain  of  colour  crept  into  Lady  Bridget-Mary's 
white  cheeks. 

"  All  that  is  over,  Aunt  Constantia.  Forget  it,  as  I  have 
done,  and  drink  a  little  of  this.  The  Sisters  believe  it  to  be 
calming  to  the  nerves." 

''  To  naturally  calm  nerves,  I  suppose."  The  Dowager  ac- 
cepted the  tumbler.  "What  a  nice,  thick,  old-fashioned 
glass !  "  She  sipped.  "  You  hear  how  my  teeth  are  chattering 
against  the  rim.  That  is  because  I  have  flown  here  in  such 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  57 

a  hurry  of  agitation  upon  hearing  from  your  father  that  you 
have  decided  to  enter  the  Novitiate  at  once." 

"  It  is  true,"  said  Lady  Bridget-Mary,  standing  very  tall 
and  dark  and  straight  against  the  background  of  the  parlour 
window,  that  was  filled  in  with  ground-glass,  and  veiled  with 
snowy  curtains  of  starched  thread-lace. 

"  True!  When  not  ten  months  ago  you  declared  to  me  that 
you  would  not  be  a  nun  for  all  the  world.  .  .  .  You  begged 
me  to  befriend  you  in  the  matter  of  Captain  Mildare.  I  un- 
dertook, alas!  that  office  .  .  ." 

The  Dowager-Duchess  blew  her  nose. 

"A  little  more  of  the  orange-flower  water,  dear  aunt?" 

"  '  Dear  aunt,'  when  you  are  trampling  upon  my  very  heart- 
strings! And  let  me  tell  you,  Bridget-Mary,  you  have  always 
been  my  favourite  niece.  'For  all  the  world'  you  said  with 
your  own  lips,  '  I  would  not  be  a  nun/  Three  millions  will 
buy,  if  not  the  world,  at  least  a  good  slice  of  it.  ...  Figura- 
tively, I  offer  them  to  you  in  this  outstretched  hand!  "  The 
Dowager  extended  a  puce  kid  glove.  "  The  man  who  goes 
with  them  is  a  good  creature.  I  have  seen  and  spoken  with 
him,  and  the  dear  Queen  regards  me  as  a  judge  of  men. 
'  Consie,'  she  has  said,  '  you  have  perception  .  .  .'  What  my 
Sovereign  credits  may  not  my  niece  believe?" 

Lady  Bridget-Mary's  black  brows  were  stern  over  the  great 
joyless  eyes  that  looked  out  of  their  sculptured  caves  upon  th** 
world  she  had  bidden  good-bye  to.  But  the  fine  lines  of  hu- 
mour about  the  wings  of  the  sensitive  nostrils  and  the  corners 
of  the  large  finely-modelled  mouth  quivered  a  little. 

"  Drink  a  little  more  orange-flower  water,  dear,  and  never 
tell  me  who  the  man  is.  I  do  not  wish  to  hear.  I  decline  to 
hear." 

The  Dowager-Duchess  lost  her  temper. 

"  That  is  because  you  know  already,  and  despise  money  that 
is  made  of  jam.  Yet  coal  and  beer  are  swallowed  with  avidity 
by  young  women  who  have  not  forfeited  the  right  to  be  fastid- 
ious. That  is  the  last  thing  I  wished  to  say,  but  you  have 
wrung  it  from  me.  Have  you  no  pride?  Do  you  want  So- 
ciety to  say  that  you  have  embraced  the  profession  of  a  Re- 
ligious, and  intend  henceforth  to  employ  your  talents  in  teach- 
ing sniffy-nosed  schoolgirls  Greek  and  Algebra  and  mathemat- 
ics, because  this  man  has  jilted  you?  Again,  have  you  no 
pride?"  She  agitated  the  Britannia-metal  teaspoon  furiously 
in  the  empty  tumbler. 


58  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

Lady  Bridget-Mary  took  the  tumbler  away.  Why  should 
the  humble  property  of  the  Sisters  be  broken  because  this  kind, 
fussy  woman  chose  to  upbraid  ? 

"You  ask,  Have  I  no  pride?"  she  said.  "Why  should  I 
have  pride  when  Our  Lord  is  so  humble  that  He  does  not 
disdain  to  take  for  His  bride  the  woman  Richard  Mildare  has 
rejected  ?  " 

"  You  are  incorrigible,  dearest,"  said  the  sobbing  Dowager- 
Duchess,  as  she  kissed  her,  "and  Castleclare  must  use  all  his 
influence  with  the  Holy  Father  to  induce  the  Comtesse  de 
Lutetia  to  give  you  the  veil.  All  of  you  think  I  am  damned, 
and  possibly  I  may  be,  but  if  so  I  shall  be  afforded  an  oppor- 
tunity (which  will  not  be  mine  in  this  life)  of  giving  Captain 
Mildare  a  piece  of  my  mind!  " 

So  the  Dowager-Duchess  melted  out  of  the  story,  and  Lady 
Bridget-Mary  Bawne  became  a  nun. 


THIS  is  what  the  Mother-Superior  wrote  to  her  kinswoman, 
with  her  mobile,  eloquent  lips  folded  closely  together  as  she 
thought,  and  her  grave  eyes  following  the  swift  journey  of  the 
pen  as  it  formed  the  sentences: 

"Now  let  me  speak  to  you  of  Lynette  Mildare.  I  have 
never  thought  it  necessary  to  make  the  slightest  disguise  of  my 
great  partiality  for  this,  the  dearest  of  all  the  many  children 
given  me  by  Our  Lord  since  I  gave  up  my  crown  of  earthly 
motherhood  to  Him" 

She  stopped,  remembering  what  another  great  lady,  a  relative 
of  hers,  had  said  to  her  when  it  was  first  made  public  that  she 
intended  to  enter  the  Novitiate: 

"  Indeed !  It  would  seem,  then,  that  you  are  devoid  of  am- 
bition, my  dear,  unlike  the  other  people  of  your  house." 

She  had  said: 

"  Does  it  strike  you  as  lack  of  ambition  that  one  of  my  fam- 
ily should  prefer  Christ  before  any  earthly  spouse?  " 

What  a  base  utterance  that  had  seemed  to  her  afterwards! 
How  devoid  of  the  true  spirit  of  the  religious,  how  hateful, 
petty,  profane!  But  the  great  lady  had  been  greatly  struck 
by  it,  and  went  about  quoting  her  words  everywhere.  She, 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  59 

who  had  spoken  them,  set  them  for  ever  as  a  bar  between  her 
and  ill-considered,  worldly  speech. 
She  wrote  on: 

"  She  has  no  vocation  for  the  life  of  a  religious,  f  doubt 
her  being  happy  or  successful  an  a  teacher  here,  were  I  removed 
from  my  post  by  supreme  earthly  authority,  or  by  death,  either 
contingency  being  the  expression  of  the  Will  of  God.  She  hat 
a  reserved,  sensitive  nature,  quick  to  feel,  and  eager  to  hide 
what  she  feels,  indifferent  to  praise  or  popularity  among  the 
many,  anxiously  desirous  to  please,  passionately  devoted  where 
she  gives  k:r  love.  .  .  " 

The  firm  mouth  quivered,  and  a  mist  stole  before  her  eyes. 
Being  human,  she  took  the  handkerchief  that  lay  amongst  her 
papers  and  wiped  the  crowding  tears  away,  and  went  on: 

"/  could  wish,  in  anticipation  of  either  of  the  events  named, 
that  provision  might  now  be  made  for  her.  Those  who  love 
me — yourself  I  know  to  be  among  the  number — will  not,  I  feel 
assured,  be  Indifferent  to  my  wish  that  she  should  be  placed 
beyond  the  reach  of  want." 

She  wrote  on,  knowing  that  the  implied  wish  would  be  ob- 
served as  a  command: 

"  We  have  never  been  able  to  trace  any  persons  who  might 
have  been  her  parents — we  have  never  even  known  her  real 
name. — Those  among  whom  her  childhood  was  spent  called 
her  by  none.  As  you  know,  I  gave  her  In  Holy  Baptism  one 
that  was  our  dear  dead  mother's,  together  with  the  sur-name 
of  a  lost  friend^  She  is,  and  must  be  always,  known  as  Lynette 
Mlldare." 

Her  eyes  were  tearless,  and  her  hand  quite  steady  as  she  con- 
tinued: 

"  You  must  not  be  at  all  alarmed  or  shaken  by  this  letter.  1 
am  perfectly  well  In  health;  be  quite  assured,  I  trust  I  may  be 
spared  to  carry  on  my  work  here  for  many  long  years  to  come. 
But  In  case  it  should  be  othenulse,  I  write  thus'. 

"  The  country  is  greatly  disturbed,  In  spite  of  the  calmlst 
reports  that  have  been  disseminated  by  the  Home  Authorities. 


60  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

/  do  not,  and  cannot,  imagine  what  the  official  view  may  be  in 
London  at  this  moment,  but  it  is  certain  that  the  Transvaal 
and  Free  State  are  preparing  for  war.  Every  hour  the  enmity 
between  the  Boers  and  the  English  deepens  in  intensity.  It 
will  be  to  many  minds  a  relief  when  the  storm  bursts.  The 
War  Office  may  think  meanly  of  the  Africanized  Dutchman 
as  a  fighting  force,  but  the  opinion  of  every  loyal  Briton  in 
this  country  is  that  he  is  not  a  foe  to  be  despised,  and  that  he 
will  shed  the  last  drop  of  his  own  blood  and  his  children's  for 
the  sake  of  his  independence. 

"Above  the  petty  interests  of  greedy  capitalists  looms  the 
wider  question:  Shall  the  Briton  or  the  Dutchman  rule  in 
the  South  of  Africa?  Here  in  this  little  frontier  town  ive 
wait  the  sounding  of  the  tocsin.  The  Orange  Free  State  has 
openly  allied  itself  with  the  Transvaal  Government.  There 
are  said  to  be  several  commandos  in  laager  on  the  Border.  A 
public  meeting  of  citizens  of  this  town  has  been  held,  at  which 
a  vote  of  c No  confidence'  in  the  Dutch  Ministers  has  been 
passed,  and  an  appeal  fsr  help  has  been  made  to  the  Govern- 
ment at  Cape  Town.  It  is  not  yet  publicly  known  what  the 
response  has  been,  if  there  is  any.  I  think  it  ominous  that  all 
of  our  Dutch  pupils,  save  one,  should  have  been  hurriedly  sent 
for  by  their  parents  before  the  ending  of  the  term.  Knowing 
my  responsibility,  I  am  sending  all  home,  except  the  few  who 
happen  to  be  resident  in  this  town,  and  the  school  will  remain 
closed,  at  all  events,  until  the  outlook  assumes  a  less  threaten- 
ing aspect^  It  is  a  relief  to  many  that  a  Military  Commandant 
has  been  appointed  by  the  authorities  of  Cape  Town,  and  that 
he  arrived  here  a  week  ago.  He  is  reported  to  be  an  officer  of 
energy  and  decision,  and  as  he  has  already  set  the  troops  under 
his  command  to  work  at  putting  the  town  into  a  condition  of 
defence,  and  is  organizing  the  civil  male  population  into  regi- 
ment of  armed " 

There  was  a  light  knock  at  the  door.  She  responded  with 
the  permission  to  enter,  and  a  tall,  slight  girl,  with  red-brown 
hair,  came  in  and  closed  the  door,  dropping  her  little  curtsy 
to  the  Mother-Superior.  She  wore  the  plain  black  alpaca  uni- 
form of  the  Convent,  with  the  ribbon  of  the  Headship  of  the 
Red  Class,  to  be  resigned  when  she  should  become  a  pupil- 
teacher  at  the  opening  of  the  next  term;  and  the  rare  and 
beautiful  smile  broke  over  the  face  of  the  elder  woman  as  the 
younger  came  to  her  side. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  61 

"  Are  you  busy,  Reverend  Mother  ?  Do  you  want  me  to  go 
away  ?  " 

"  I  shall  have  finished  in  another  five  minutes,  and  then  there 
will  be  no  more  letters  to  write,  my  child.  Sit  where  you 
choose ;  take  a  book,  and  be  quiet ;  I  shall  not  keep  you  waiting 
long." 

The  words  were  few;  the  Mother-Superior's  manner  a  little 
curt  in  speaking  them.  But  where  Lynette  chose  to  sit  was  on 
the  cheap  drugget  that  covered  the  beeswaxed  boards,  with  her 
squirrel-coloured  hair  and  soft  cheek  pressed  against  the  black 
serge  habit. 

The  Mother-Superior  wrote  on,  apparently  absorbed,  and 
with  knitted  brows  of  attention,  but  her  large,  white,  beautiful 
hand  dropped  half  unconsciously  to  the  silken  hair  and  the 
velvet  cheek,  and  stayed  there. 

There  is  a  type  of  woman  the  lightest  touch  of  whose  hand 
is  subtler  and  more  sweet  than  the  most  honeyed  kisses  of 
others.  And  the  Mother-Superior  was  not  liberal  of  caresses. 
When  Lynette  turned  her  lips  to  the  hand,  the  face  that  bent 
over  the  paper  remained  as  stern  and  as  absorbed  as  ever.  She 
went  on  writing,  directed,  closed,  and  stamped  her  letter,  and 
set  it  aside  under  a  pebble  of  white  quartz,  lined  and  streaked 
with  the  faint  silvery  green  of  gold. 

"Now,  my  child?" 

The  girl  said,  flushing  scarlet: 

"  Reverend  Mother,  I  have  told  the  Red  Class  the  truth 
about  me!" 

The  Mother-Superior  started;  dismay  was  in  her  face. 

"Why,  child?" 

"  I — I  mean  " — the  scarlet  flush  gave  place  to  paleness — 
"  that  I  have  no  name  and  no  family,  and  no  friends  except 
you,  dearest,  and  the  Sisters.  That  you  found  me,  and  took 
me  in,  and  have  kept  me  out  of  charity." 

"Was  it  necessary  to  have  told — anything  whatever?" 

"  I  think  so,  Mother,  and  I  am  glad  now  that  I  have  done 
it.  There  will  be  no  need  for  deception  any  more." 

"  My  daughter,  there  has  never  been  the  slightest  deception 
of  any  kind  whatsoever  upon  your  part,  or  the  part  of  anyone 
else  who  knew.  No  interests  suffered  by  your  keeping  your 
own  secret.  Who  first  solicited  your  confidence  in  this  mat- 
ter?" 

"  Greta  Du  Taine." 

"  Greta  Du  Taine."     Very  cold  was  the  tone  of  the  Mother- 


62  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

Superior.  "  May  I  ask  how  she  received  the  information  she 
had  the  bad  taste  to  seek?  " 

"  Mother — she  took  it — not  quite  as  I  expected." 

"  Yet  she  and  you  have  always  been  friends,  my  child." 

Lynette  rose  up  upon  her  knees.  The  long  arm  of  the 
Mother-Superior  went  round  the  slight  figure  that  leaned 
against  her,  and  in  the  sudden  gesture  was  a  passion  of  protect- 
ing motherhood. 

"  Mother,  she  does  not  wish  to  be  my  friend  any  longer. 
She  was  quite  horrified  to  remember  that  she  had  invited 
me  to  stay  with  her  at  the  Du  Taine  place  near  Johan- 
nesburg. But  she  said  that,  if  I  liked  she  would  not  tell  the 
class." 

"  I  have  no  fear  of  the  rest  of  the  class.  They  have  honour, 
ind  good  feeling,  and  Warm  hearts.  What  was  your  reply  to 
Jjreta's  obliging  proposition?" 

"I  told  her  that  the  sooner  everybody  knew  the  better;  and 
[  went  out  of  the  room,  and  came  to  you — as  I  always  do— as 
[  always  have  done,  ever  since " 

Her  voice  broke  in  the  first  sob. 

"Ah!"  cried  the  voice  of  the  mother-heart  she  crept  to,  as 
*he  long  arms  in  the  loose  black  serge  sleeves  went  out  and 
folded  her  close,  "  ah,  if  I  might  be  always  here  for  you  to 
run  to!  But  God  knows  best!" 

She  said  aloud: 

"  Well,  the  ordeal  is  over,  and  will  not  have  to  be  gone 
through  again.  And  for  the  future,  bear  in  mind  that  every 
human  being  has  a  right  to  regard  his  own  business — or  hers — 
as  private,  and  to  exclude  the  curious  from  affairs  which  do 
not  concern  them."  She  reached  out  quick  tender  hands,  and 
framed  the  wistful,  sensitive  face  in  them,  and  added,  in  a 
lower  tone:  "For  a  little  told  may  beget  in  them  the  desire 
to  know  more.  And  always  remember  this:  that  the  only 
just  claim  to  your  perfect  confidence  in  all  that  concerns  your 
past  life,  and  I  say  all  with  meaning  " — the  girl's  white  eye- 
lids fell  under  her  earnest  gaze,  and  the  delicate  lips  began  to 
quiver — "  will  rest  in  the  man — the  honourable  and  brave  and 
worthy  gentleman — who  I  pray  may  one  day  be  your  hus- 
band." 

"  No!  "  she  cried  out  sharply  as  if  in  terror,  and  the  slight 
figure  was  shaken  by  a  sudden  spasm  of  trembling.  "  Oh, 
Mother,  no!  Never,  never!" 

With  a  gesture  of  infinite  pity  and  tenderness  the  Mother 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  63 

drew  her  close,  and  hid  the  shamed  eyes  upon  her  bosom,  and 
whispered,  with  her  lips  upon  the  red-brown  hair: 

"My  lamb,  my  dearest,  my  poor,  poor  child!  It  shall  be 
never  if  you  choose,  Lynette.  But  make  no  rash  vows,  no  de- 
terminations that  you  think  irrevocable.  Leave  the  future  to 
God.  Now  dry  these  dear  eyes,  and  put  old  thoughts  and 
memories  of  sorrow  and  of  shame  most  resolutely  away  from 
you.  Be  happy,  as  Our  Lord  meant  all  innocent  creatures  of 
His  to  be.  And  do  not  be  tempted  to  magnify  Greta's  offence 
against  friendship.  She  has  acted  according  to  her  lights,  and 
if  they  are  of  the  kind  that  shine  in  marshy  places,  a  better 
Light  will  shine  upon  her  path  one  day.  I  know  that  you  have 
real  affection  for  her  .  .  .  though  I  must  own  I  have  always 
wondered  in  what  lay  the  secret  of  her  popularity  in  the 
School ?  " 

"  She  is  so  amusing — and  so  pretty,  Mother." 

"  She  is  exquisitely  pretty.  And  beauty  is  one  of  the  most 
excellent  among  all  the  gifts  of  God.  Our  sense  of  what  is 
beautiful  and  the  delight  we  have  in  the  perception  of  it  must 
linger  with  us  from  those  days  when  Angels  walked  visibly  on 
earth,  and  talked  with  the  children  of  men.  A  lovely  soul  in 
a  lovely  body,  nothing  can  be  more  excellent,  but  such  a  body 
does  not  always  cage  what  St.  Columb  called  '  the  bird  of 
beauty.'  And  we  must  not  be  swayed  or  led  by  outward  and 
perishable  things,  that  are  illusions,  and  deceits,  and  snares." 

The  Mother-Superior  reached  out  a  long  arm,  and  took  a 
solid  leather-bound,  red-edged  volume  from  the  table,  and 
opened  it  at  a  page  marked  by  a  flamingo  feather,  whose  deli- 
cate pink  faded  at  the  tip  into  rosy-white. 

"  I  was  reading  this  a  little  while  before  you  came  in.  If 
you  were  not  a  little  dunce  at  Greek,  you  would  be  able  to 
construe  the  classic  author  for  yourself." 

"  But  I  am  a  dunce,  dear,  and  so  I  leave  you  to  read  him  to 
me,"  said  Lynette  triumphantly. 

"  Well,  balance  this  heavy  book,  and  listen." 

She  read: 

When  first  the  Father  of  the  Immortals  fashioned  with 
His  Divine  Hands  the  human  shape: 

An  image  first  He  made  of  red  earth  from  Ida,  tempered 
with  pure  water  from  the  stream  of  Xanthos,  and  wine  from 
the  golden  Kyliz  borne  by  beautiful  Ganymede,  and  it  was 
godlike  to  look  upon  as  a  thing  fashioned  by  the  hands  of  the 


64  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

god.  But  the  clay  was  not  tempered  sufficiently  and  warped 
in  the  drying.  Then  Zeus  Pater  fashioned  another  shape  with 
more  cunning,  and  this  was  tempered  well  and  warped  not. 
And  He  bent  down  to  breathe  between  its  lips  the  living  soul* 
But  as  He  stooped,  Hephaistos,  jealous  of  the  Divine  gift 
about  to  be  conferred  upon  the  mortal  race,  sent  from  his  forges 
smoke  and  vapour,  which  obscured  the  vision  of  the  Almighty 
Workman.  So  that  the  imperfect  image  received  that  which 
was  meant  for  the  perfect  one. 

"'And  Zeus  Pater,  being  angered,  said:  "See  what  thy 
malice  has  wrought.  Behold,  a  beautiful  soul  has  been  set  in 
a  body  unbeauteous  and  through  thine  act,  and  God  though 
I  be,  I  cannot  take  back  the  gift  that  I  have  given."  Then  into 
the  other  image  of  Man,  the  Divine  One  breathed  a  soul. 
But  being  wearied  with  His  labours,  and  angered  by  the  craft  of 
Hephaistos,  it  was  less  pure  than  the  first.  And  so  two  men 
came  into  being. 

''And  he  whose  body  had  been  fashioned  perfectly  and 
without  flaw  by  the  Hands  of  the  Divine  Craftsman  walked  the 
earth  with  gracious  mien.  Fair-eyed  was  he,  with  locks  like 
clustering  vine-tendrils,  and  cheeks  rosy  ds  the  apples  of  Love; 
but  the  soul  of  this  man  was  cunning,  and  he  rejoiced  in  evils 
and  cruelties,  and  deceits  and  mockeries  were  upon  his  lips. 

''And  he  whose  image  had  warped  in  the  drying  was  un- 
beautiful  in  body  and  swart  to  look  upon,  as  though  blackened 
by  the  forge-fires  of  Hephaistos,  but  he  dealt  uprightly  and 
hated  evil,  and  on  his  lips  there  was  no  guile,  but  faithfulness 
and  truth. 

'  'And  he  who  was  imperfect  in  body  was  fairer  in  the  eyes 
of  the  Immortal  Father  than  his  brother;  because  there  dwelt 
within  him  a  beauteous  soul.' " 

"  And  yet,  Mother,  if  your  beautiful  soul  had  not  been 
given  beautiful  windows  to  look  out  at,  and  a  beautiful  mouth 
to  kiss  me  or  scold  me  with,  and  beautiful  hands  to  hold,  it 
would  have  been  a  beastly  shame/' 

Is  there  a  woman  living  who  can  resist  such  sweet  daughterly 
flatteries?  This  was  very  much  a  woman,  and  very  much  a 
mother,  if  very  much  a  nun.  She  kissed  the  mouth  distilling 
such  dear  honey. 

"  This,  not  for  the  compliment,  but  because  it  is  six  years 
to-day  since  I  found  you,  lying  like  some  poor  little  strayed 
lamb  on  the  veld,  with  the  aasvogels  hovering  overhead." 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  65 

"  That  was  my  real  birthday,  dearest,  dearest  .  .   ." 

The  girl  pressed  closer  to  her  with  dumb,  vehement  affection, 
as  though  she  would  have  grown  to  the  bosom  that  had  been 
her  shield  since  then. 

"  On  that  day  a  little  later,  when  I  looked  down  and  you 
looked  up  with  big  eyes  that  begged  for  love,  I  knew  that 
\ve  had  found  each  other.  And  we  have  never  lost  each  other 
since,  I  think?  " 

She  smiled  radiantly  into  the  loving  eyes. 

"  Never,  my  Mother.  But  if  we  did  ...  if  we  are  ever  to 
be  estranged  or  parted,  it  would  be  better  .  .  .  oh,  it  would 
be  better  if  you  had  passed  by  in  the  waggon,  and  left  me  lying, 
and  the  aasvogels  and  the  wrild-dogs  had  done  the  rest." 

The  Mother-Superior  said,  loosening  the  clinging  arms,  and 
putting  her  gently  away: 

"  Never,  my  daughter.  You  do  gravely  wrong  to  say  so. 
Holy  Baptism  has  been  yours,  and  Confirmation,  and  you  have 
shared  with  His  Faithful  in  the  Body  of  Christ.  .  .  .  Never 
let  me  hear  you  say  that  again." 

"  Mother,  I  promise  you,  you  never  shall.  But  I  had  a 
dream  last  night  that  was  most  vivid  and  strange  and  awful. 
It  has  haunted  me  ever  since." 

The  Mother-Superior  started,  for  she  also  had  had  a  strange 
dream.  Of  that  vision  had  been  born  the  written  letter  that 
now  lay  under  the  quartz  paper-weight — the  letter  that  was 
to  be  sent,  with  others,  by  the  next  English  mail  that  should 
go  out  from  Gueldersdorp,  which  said  mail,  being  intercepted 
by  the  Boers,  was  never  to  reach  its  destination.  Supposing  it 
had,  this  story  need  never  have  been  written,  or  else  another 
would  have  been  written  in  its  place. 

"  Dear  heart,  I  do  not  think  that  it  is  good  or  useful  to 
brood  upon  such  things,  or  to  relate  them.  And  the  Church 
forbids  us  to  take  account  of  mere  dreams,  or  in  any  way  to  be 
swayed  by  them." 

"  That  has  always  puzzled  me.  Because,  you  know  .  .  , 
supposing  St.  Joseph  had  refused  to  credit  a  dream.  .  .  ." 

"  There  are  dreams  and  dreams,  my  dear.  And  the 
heavenly  visions  of  the  Saints  are  not  to  be  confounded  with 
our  trivial  subconscious  memories.  Besides,  sweets  and  fruits 
and  pastry  consumed  in  the  Seniors'  dormitory  at  night  are 
not  only  an  infringement  of  School  rules,  but  an  insult  to  the 
digestion." 

''  Mother,  how  did  you  find  out?"  cried  Lynette.       There 


66  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

was  something  very  like  a  dimple  in  the  bleached  olive  of  the 
sweet  worn  cheek,  lurking  near  the  edge  of  the  close  coif,  and  a 
twinkle  of  laughter  in  the  deep  grey  eyes  that  you  thought 
were  black  until  you  had  learned  better. 

"  Well,  though  you  may  not  find  it  easy  to  believe,  I  was 
once  a  girl  at  a  Convent  school,  and  I  possibly  remember  how 
we  usually  celebrated  a  breaking-up.  There  is  the  washing- 
bell;  the  school  tea-bell  will  ring  directly;  you  must  hurry, 
or  you  will  be  late.  One  moment.  What  of  this  unpleasant 
incident  that  took  place  during  the  afternoon  walk  yesterday? 
Sister  Cleophee  and  Sister  Francis-Clare  have  not  given  me 
a  very  definite  account." 

Lynette's  fair  skin  flushed  poppy-red. 

"  Mother,  they  hooted  us  on  the  road  to  the  Recreation 
Ground." 

Upon  the  great  brows  of  the  Mother-Superior  sat  the 
majesty  of  coming  tempest.  Her  white  hand  clenched,  her 
tone  was  awfully  stern : 

"Who  were  'they'?" 

"  Some  drunken  Boers  and  store-boys — at  least,  I  think  they 
were  drunk — and  some  Dutch  railway-men.  They  cried  shame 
on  the  Dutch  girls  for  learning  from  vile  English  idolaters. 
Then  more  men  came  up  and  joined  them.  They  threw  stones, 
and  threatened  to  duck  Sister  Cleophee  and  the  two  other 
Sisters  in  the  river.  And  they  might  have  tried  to,  though 
we  senior  girls  got  round  them — at  least,  some  of  us  did — and 
said  they  should  try  that  on  us  first " 

"  That  was  courageous." 

"  We  " — Lynette  laughed  a  little  nervously — "  we  were  aw- 
fully frightened,  all  the  same." 

"  My  dear,  without  fear  there  would  have  been  no  courage. 
Then  I  am  told  an  English  officer  interfered?" 

"  He  was  coming  from  the  direction  of  the  Hospital — a  tall 
thin  man  in  Service  khaki,  with  a  riding-sjambok  under  his 
arm.  But  it  would  have  been  as  good  as  a  sword  if  he  had 
used  it  on  those  men.  When  he  lifted  it  in  speaking  to  them 
they  huddled  together  like  sheep." 

"  You  had  no  idea  who  he  was,  of  course  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  know  his  name,  but  I  heard  one  of  the  Boers  say 
*That  slim  duyvel  with  the  sjambok  is  the  new  Military  Com- 
mandant.' Another  officer  was  with  him,  much  younger,  taller, 
and  with  fair  hair.  He " 

"  I  hope  I  shall  soon  have  an  opportunity  of  thanking  the 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  67 

Commandant  personally.  As  it  is,  I  shall  write.  Now  go, 
my  dear." 

Lynette  took  her  familiar  kiss,  and  dropped  her  formal 
curtsy,  and  went  with  the  red  sunset  touching  her  squirrel- 
coloured  hair  to  flame.  The  tea-bell  rang  as  she  shut  the  door 
behind  her,  and  directly  afterwards  the  gate-bell  clanged, 
sending  an  iron  shout  echoing  through  the  whitewashed,  tile- 
paved  passages,  as  if  heralding  a  visitor  who  would  not  be 
denied.  An  Irish  novice  who  was  on  duty  with  the  Sister 
attendant  on  the  gate  came  shortly  afterwards  to  the  room 
of  the  Mother-Superior,  bringing  a  card  on  a  little  wooden 
tray. 

The  Mother,  the  opening  sentences  of  her  note  of  thanks 
wet  upon  the  sheet  before  her,  took  the  card,  and  knew  that  the 
letter  need  not  be  sent. 

"This  gentleman  desired  to  see  me?  " 

"  He  did  so,  Reverend  Mother,"  whispered  the  timid  Irish 
girl,  who  stood  in  overwhelming  awe  of  the  majestic  person- 
ality before  her.  "  '  Ask  the  Mother-Superior  wTill  she  con- 
sent to  receive  me  ?  '  says  he.  '  If  she  won't,  say  that  she  must.' 
Says  I : '  Sir,  I'd  not  drame  to  presume  to  give  Herself  a  message 
that  bowld,  but  if  you'll  please  to  wait,  I'll  tell  her  what  you're 
after  saying.' >: 

"  Quite  right,  Katie.  Now  go  and  tell  Sister  Tobias  to 
show  him  into  the  parlour.  I  will  be  there  directly." 

Katie  bobbed  and  vanished.  When  the  Mother-Superior 
came  into  the  parlour,  the  visitor  was  standing  near  the  fire- 
place, with  his  hands  behind  his  back.  One  wore  a  shabby 
dogskm  riding-glove.  The  other,  lean  and  brown  and  knotty, 
held  his  riding-cane  and  the  other  glove,  and  a  grey  "  smasher  " 
hat.  He  was  looking  up  quietly  and  intently  at  a  framed  oil- 
painting  that  hung  above. 

It  represented  a  Syrian  desert  landscape,  pale  and  ghastly, 
under  the  light  of  a  great  white  moon,  with  one  lonely  Figure 
standing  like  a  sentinel  against  a  towering  fang  of  rock. 
Lurking  forms  of  fierce  beasts  of  prey  were  dimly  to  be  dis- 
tinguished amongst  the  shadows,  and  by  the  side  of  the  patient, 
lonely  watcher  brooded  with  out-spread  bat-wings  a  Shadow 
infinitely  more  terrible  than  any  of  these.  It  was  rather  a  poor 
copy  of  a  modern  picture,  but  the  truth  and  force  and  inspi- 
ration of  the  original  had  made  of  the  copyist  an  artist  for  the 
time.  The  pure  dignity  and  lofty  faith  and  patience  of  the 
Christ-eyes,  haggard  with  bodily  sleeplessness  and  spiritual 


68  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

battle,  the  indomitable  resistance  breathing  in  the  lines  of  the 
Christ  figure,  wan  and  gaunt  with  physical  famine  as  with 
the  nobler  hunger  of  the  soul,  were  rendered  with  fidelity  and 
power. 

The  stranger's  keen  ear  caught  the  Mother's  long,  swift 
step,  and  the  sweep  of  her  woollen  draperies  over  the  shiny 
beeswaxed  floor.  He  wheeled  sharply,  brought  his  heels  to- 
gether, and  bowed.  She  returned  his  salutation  with  her  in- 
imitable dignity  and  grace.  With  his  eyes  on  the  pure,  still 
calmness  of  the  face  framed  in  the  white  close  guimpe,  the 
Colonel  commented  mentally: 

"  What  a  noble-looking  woman !  " 

The  Mother-Superior  thought,  as  her  composed  eyes  swept 
over  the  tall,  spare,  broad-shouldered  figure  and  the  strong, 
lean,  tanned  face,  with  its  alert,  hazel  eyes,  nose  of  the  falcon- 
beak  order,  and  the  firm  straight  mouth  unconcealed  by  the 
short-clipped  moustache : 

"  This  is  a  brave  man." 

XI 

THE  great  of  soul  are  not  slow  to  find  each  other  out.  These 
two  recognized  each  other  at  meeting.  Before  he  had  explained 
his  errand,  she  had  thanked  him  cordially,  directly,  and  sim- 
ply, for  his  timely  interference  of  the  previous  day. 

"  One  of  the  lesser  reasons  of  my  visit,  which  I  must  ex- 
plain is  official  in  character,"  he  said,  "  was  to  advise  you  that 
your  pupils  and  the  ladies  in  charge  of  them  will  not  hence- 
forth be  safe  from  insult  except  in  those  parts  of  the  town  most 
frequented  with  our  countrymen,  and  rarely  even  there.  It 
would  be  wise  of  you  under  existing  circumstances,  which  I 
shall  explain  as  fully  and  as  briefly  as  I  may,  to  send  your 
pupils  without  delay  to  their  homes." 

"  All  that  have  not  already  left,"  she  assured  him,  "  with 
the  exception  of  those  whose  parents  reside  in  the  town,  or  who 
have  no  living  relatives,  and  therefore  do  not  leave  us,  go  North 
and  South  by  early  trains  to-morrow." 

"  Ma'am,"  he  said,  "  I  am  heartily  glad  to  hear  it."  He 
added,  as  she  invited  him  to  be  seated:  "Thank  you,  but  I 
have  been  in  the  saddle  since  five  this  morning,  and  if  you  have 
no  objection  I  should  prefer  to  stand.  And  for  another  reason, 
I  explain  things  better  on  my  legs.  But  you  will  allow  me  to 
find  you  a  seat,  if — any  of  these  may  be  moved?  "  His  glance, 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  69 

with  some  perturbation  in  it,  reviewed  the  stiff  ranks  of  chairs 
severely  marshalled  in  Convent  fashion  against  the  varnished 
skirting-board. 

"  They  are  not  fixtures,"  she  said,  with  quiet  amusement  at 
his  evident  relief,  and  he  got  her  a  chair,  the  largest  and  most 
solid  that  the  room  offered,  and  planted  himself  opposite  her, 
standing  on  the  hearthrug,  with  one  hand  resting  on  the  corner 
of  the  high  mantelshelf,  and  the  toe  of  a  spurred  riding-boot 
on  the  plain  brick  kerb. 

"  I  may  as  well  say  .  .  ." — he  ran  a  finger  round  the  inside 
of  the  collar  that  showed  about  the  khaki  jacket — "  that,  though 
I  have  often  had  the  pleasure,  and  I  will  add,  the  great  ad- 
vantage, of  meeting  ladies  of — of  your  religious  profession  be- 
fore, this  is  the  first  time  that  I  was  ever  inside  a  Convent." 

"  Or  a  boarding-school  ? "  she  asked,  and  her  rare,  sudden 
smile  irradiated  her.  His  hand  dropped  from  his  collar.  He 
looked  at  her  with  a  sudden  warmth  of  admiration  there  was  no 
mistaking.  But  her  beauty  went  as  suddenly  as  it  had  come, 
and  her  arched,  black  brows  frowned  slightly  as  she  said,  in 
tones  that  were  very  cold  and  very  clear,  and  rather  ironical : 

"  Sir,  you  are  good  enough  to  waste  valuable  time  in  trying 
to  break,  with  due  consideration  for  the  nerves  of  a  large  house- 
hold of  unprotected  women,  the  news  we  have  expected  daily 
for  months.  You  have  come  here  to  announce  to  us  the  burst- 
ing of  the  cloud  of  War.  Is  it  not  so  ?  " 

He  was  taken  aback,  but  hid  it  like  a  diplomat. 

"  Ma'am,  it  is  so.  The  public  notice  was  posted  in  the 
town  this  morning.  Forces  of  Boers  are  massed  on  the  Natal 
and  Bechuanaland  borders,  waiting  until  the  British  fire  a 
shot.  Their  secret  orders  are  to  wait  that  signal,  but  some  un- 
looked-for event  may  cause  them  to  anticipate  these.  .  .  . 
And  we  shall  be  wise  to  prepare  for  eventualities.  For  my- 
self, having  been  sent  out  by  the  British  Government  on  special 
service  to  report  to  the  Home  Authorities  upon  our  defences 
in  the  North — it  is  an  open  secret  now — I  have  been  sent  on 
here  to  put  the  town  into  a  condition  to  withstand  siege.  And 
frankly,  without  apology  for  necessary  and  inevitable  bluntness, 
one  of  the  most  important  of  those  conditions  is — that  the 
women  and  children  should  be  got  out  of  it." 

The  blow  had  been  delivered.  The  angry  blush  that  he  had 
expected  did  not  invade  the  pale  olive  of  her  cheeks. 

He  added: 

"  I  hope  you  will  understand  that  I  say  this  because  it  is  mj) 


70  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

duty.  I  am  not  naturally  an  unsociable,  or  bearish,  or  a  mis- 
ogynist. Rather  the  contrary.  Quite  the  contrary." 

She  remembered  a  slim,  boyish,  young  subaltern  officer  of 
Hussars  with  whom  she  had  danced  in  a  famous  London  ball* 
room  more  than  twenty  years  back.  That  boy  a  woman  hater! 
Struggle  as  she  would  the  Mother-Superior  could  not  keep 
Lady  Bridget-Mary  Bawne  from  coming  to  the  surface  for 
an  instant.  But  she  went  under  directly,  and  left  nothing  but 
a  spark  of  laughter  in  the  beautiful  grave  eyes. 

"  I  understand,"  she  said.  "  Woman  in  time  of  peace  may 
add  a  certain  welcome  pleasantness  to  life.  In  time  of  war  she 
is  nothing  but  a  helpless  incubus." 

"  Let  me  point  out,  ma'am,  that  I  did  not  say  so.  But  she 
possesses  a  capacity  for  being  killed  equal  in  ratio  to  that  of 
the  human  male,  without  being  equally  able  to  defend  herself. 
In  addition  to  this,  she  eats,  and  I  shall  require  all  the  rations 
that  may  be  available  to  keep  alive  the  combatant  members  of 
the  community." 

"  Eating  is  a  habit,"  agreed  the  Mother-Superior,  "  which 
even  the  most  rigid  disciplinarians  of  the  body  have  found  dif- 
ficult to  break." 

His  mouth  straightened  sternly  under  the  short-clipped 
brown  moustache.  Here  was  a  woman  who  dared  to  bandy 
words  with  the  Officer  Commanding  the  Garrison.  He  drew 
a  shabby  notebook  from  a  breast-pocket,  and  consulted  it. 

"  On  the  eleventh,  the  day  after  to-morrow,  a  special  train, 
leaving  No.  2  platform  of  the  railway-station,  will  be  placed 
by  the  British  Government  at  the  disposal  of  those  married 
women,  spinsters,  and  children  who  wish  to  follow  the  example 
of  those  who  left  to-day,  and  go  down  to  Cape  Town.  Those 
'who  prefer  to  go  North  are  advised  to  leave  for  Malamye 
Siding  or  Johnstown,  places  at  a  short  distance  from  the 
iTransvaal  Border,  where  they  will  be  almost  certain  to  find 
jsafety.  Those  who  insist  upon  remaining  in  the  town  I  can- 
not, of  course,  remove  by  force.  I  will  make  all  possible 
arrangements  to  laager  them  safely,  but  this  will  entail  heavy 
extra  labour  upon  the  forces  at  my  command,  and  inevitable 
discomfort — possibly  severe  suffering  and  privation — upon 
yourselves.  To  you,  madam,  I  appeal  to  set  a  high  example. 
Your  Community  numbers,  unless  I  am  incorrectly  informed, 
twelve  religious.  Consent  to  take  the  step  I  urge  upon  you, 
retreat  with  your  nuns  to  Cape  Town  while  the  opportunity 
is  yours." 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  71 

He  folded  his  arms,  having  spoken  this  curtly  and  crisply. 
The  Mother-Superior  rose  up  out  of  her  chair.  It  seemed  to 
him  as  though  she  would  never  have  done  rising,  but  at  last 
she  stood  before  him,  very  straight  and  awfully  tall,  with  her 
great  stern  eyes  an  inch  above  the  level  of  his  own,  and  her 
white  hands  folded  in  her  brown  sleeves. 

"  Sir,"  she  said,  "  we  are  here  under  the  episcopal  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  Catholic  Bishop  of  the  Diocese.  We  have  received 
no  order  from  His  Eminence  to  quit  our  post — and  until  we 
receive  it,  give  me  leave  to  tell  you,  with  all  respect  for  your 
high  official  authority,  that  we  shall  remain  in  Gueldersdorp." 

Their  looks  crossed  like  swords.  He  grew  crimson  over 
the  white  unsunburned  line  upon  his  forehead,  and  his 
moustache  straightened  like  a  bar  of  rusty-red  iron  across  his 
thin,  sunburnt  face.  But  he  respected  moral  power  and  deter- 
mination when  he  encountered  them,  and  this  salient  woman 
provoked  his  respect. 

"  Let  us  keep  cool "  he  began. 

"  I  assure  you  that  I  have  never  been  otherwise,"  she  said, 
"  since  the  beginning  of  this  interview." 

"  Ma'am,"  he  said,  "  you  state  the  fact.  Let  me  keep  cool, 
and  point  out  to  you  a  few  of  the — peculiarities  in  which  the 
present  situation  unfortunately  abounds." 

He  laid  down,  with  a  look  that  asked  permission,  his  hat 
and  cane  and  the  odd  glove  upon  the  round,  shining  walnut- 
table  that  stood,  adorned  with  good  little  religious,  works,  in 
the  geometrical  centre  of  the  Convent  parlour,  and  checked 
the  various  points  off  upon  the  fingers  of  the  gloved  hand  with 
the  lean,  brown,  bare  one. 

"  I  anticipate  very  shortly  the  outbreak  of  hostilities."  He 
had  quite  forgotten  that  he  was  talking  to  a  member  of  the 
squeaking  sex.  "  I  have  begun  immediately  upon  my  arrival 
here  to  prepare  for  them.  The  nucleus  of  a  sand-bag  fort 
system  has  been  formed  already,  mines  are  being  laid  down  far 
in  the  front,  and  every  male  of  the  population  who  has  a  pair 
of  capable  hands  has  had  a  rifle  put  into  them." 

She  looked  at  him,  and  approved  the  male  type  of  energy 
and  action.  "  If.  I  had  been  a  man,"  she  thought,  "  I  should 
have  wished  to  be  one  like  this."  But  she  bent  her  head  si- 
lently, and  he  went  on. 

"  We  have  an  armoured  train  in  the  railway-yard,  with  a 
Maxim  and  a  Hotchkiss.  We  have  a  Nordenfeldt,  a  couple 
of  Maxims  more,  four  seven-pounder  guns  of  almost  prehistoric 


72  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

date,  slow  of  fire,  uncertain  as  regards  the  elevating-gear,  and, 
I  tell  you  plainly,  as  dangerous,  some  of  'em,  to  be  behind  as 
to  be  in  front  of!  One  or  two  more  we've  got  that  were 
grey-headed  in  the  seventies.  By  the  Lord !  I  wish  one  or  two 
Whitehall  heads  I  know  were  mopping  'em  out  this  minute. 
Ahem!  Ahem!" 

He  coughed,  and  grew  red  under  his  sun-tan.  Her  eyes 
were  elsewhere. 

"  Ma'am,  you  must  try  to  recollect  that  the  Boer  forces  are 
armed  with  the  newest  Krupps  and  other  guns,  and  that  it  is 
more  than  possible  they  may  attempt  to  shell  the  town.  In 
that  case  artillery  of  tremendous  range,  and  a  flight  almost 
equal  to  that  of  sound  itself — I  won't  be  too  technical,  I 
assure  you! — will  be  mustered  against  our  crazy  pieces,  only 
fit  for  the  scrap-heap,  or  for  gate  ornaments.  Understand,  I 
tell  you  what  is  common  knowledge  among  our  friends — com- 
mon jest  among  our  enemies.  And  another  thing  I  will  tell 
you,  ma'am.  Those  enemies  shall  never  enter  Gueldersdorp !  " 

She  was  radiant  now,  with  that  smile  upon  her  lips,  and 
that  glow  in  the  great  eyes  that  met  his  with  such  frank 
approval.  Confound  it,  what  business  had  a  nun  to  be  any- 
thing like  so  beautiful?  Would  she  pale,  would  she  tremble, 
when  he  told  her  the  last  truth  of  all? 

"  Your  Convent,  ma'am,  unluckily  for  your  Community, 
happens  to  be,  if  not  the  biggest,  at  least  the  most  con- 
spicuously situated  building  in  the  place,  lying  as  it  does  at  a 
distance  of  four  hundred  yards  from  the  town,  on  the  north 
side.  Like  the  Hospital,  of  course,  it  will  be  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Red-Cross  Flag.  But  the  Boer  is  not  chivalrous. 
He  does  not  object  to  killing  women  or  sick  people,  nor  does 
he  observe  with  any  standing  scrupulousness  the  Geneva  Con- 
vention. Any  object  that  shows  up  nicely  on  the  skyline  is 
good  enough  to  pound  away  at,  and  the  Red-Cross  Flag  has 
often  helped  him  to  get  a  satisfactory  range.  If  they  bom- 
bard us,  as  I  have  reason  to  believe  they  will,  you'll  have  iron 
and  lead  in  tons  poured  through  these  walls." 

She  said: 

"When  they  fall  about  our  ears,  Colonel,  it  will  be  time 
to  leave  them !  " 

He  adored  a  gallant  spirit,  and  here  was  one  indeed. 

"  Ma'am,  I  am  disarmed,  since  you  take  things  in  this  way." 

"  It  is  the  only  way  in  which  to  take  them,"  she  said. 
*  There  should  be  no  panic  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  wait 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  73 

on  the  Divine  will.  Moreover,  I  should  wish  you  to  under- 
stand in  case  of  siege,  and  an  extra  demand  upon  the  staffs 
of  the  town  and  Field  Hospitals,  that  we  are  all — or  nearly 
all,  certificated  nurses,  and  would  willingly  place  our  services 
at  your  disposal.  Let  me  hope  that  you  will  call  upon  us 
without  hesitation  if  the  necessity  should  arise." 

He  thanked  her,  and  had  taken  leave,  when  he  asked  with 
diffidence  if  he  might  be  permitted  to  see  the  Convent  Chapel. 
She  consented  willingly,  and  passed  on  before,  tall  and  stately, 
and  moving  with  long,  light,  even  steps,  her  thin,  black  woollen 
garments  whispering  over  the  tiled  passages.  The  Chapel  was 
at  the  end  of  a  long  whitewashed  corridor  upon  the  airy  floor 
above.  His  keen  glance  took  in  every  feature  of  the  simple, 
spotless  little  sanctuary  as  the  tall,  black-clad  figure  swept 
noiselessly  to  the  upper  end  of  the  aisle  between  the  rows  of 
rush-seated  chairs,  and  knelt  for  an  instant  in  .veneration  of  the 
Divine  Presence  hidden  in  the  Tabernacle. 

"  Unfortunately  situated,"  he  muttered,  standing  stiffly  by 
the  west  door.  Then  he  glanced  right  and  left,  thumb  and 
finger  in  the  breast-pocket  of  his  tunic,  feeling  for  a  worn 
little  pigskin  purse.  As  he  passed  out  before  her  at  the  motion, 
and  she  mechanically  dipped  her  fingers  in  the  holy-water  font, 
and  made  the  Sign  of  the  Cross  before  she  closed  the  Chapel 
door,  she  saw  that  he  held  out  to  her  a  five-pound  note. 

"  Ma'am,  I  am  not  a  Roman  Catholic,  but  .  .  ." 

"  There  is  no  box  for  alms,"  she  said,  pausing  outside  the 
shut  door,  while  the  lay-Sister  waited  at  the  passage  end,  "  as 
this  is  only  a  private  Chapel." 

"  I  observed  that,  ma'am.  I  am,  as  I  have  said,  a  Prot- 
estant. But  in  the  behalf  of  a  dear  friend  of  mine,  a  British 
officer,  of  your  own  faith,  who  I  have  reason  to  believe  died 
without  benefit  of  his  clergy,  perhaps  with  this  you  would 
arrange  that  a  service  should  be  held  in  memory  of  the  dead  ?  " 

"  I  understand,"  said  the  Mother-Superior.  "  You  suggest 
that  a  Holy  Mass  should  be  offered  for  the  repose  of  your 
friend's  soul?  Well,  I  will  convey  your  offering  to  our 
chaplain,  Father  Wil,  since  you  wish  it." 

"  I  do  desire  it — or,  rather,  poor  Mildare  would." 

An  awful  sensation  as  of  sinking  down  through  the  solid 
floors,  through  the  foundations  of  the  Convent,  into  unfathom- 
able deeps  possessed  her.  Her  eyes  closed;  she  forced  them 
open,  and  made  a  desperate  rally  of  her  sinking  forces.  Un- 
seen she  put  out  one  hand  behind  her,  and  leaned  it  for  support 


74  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

against  the  iron-studded  oak  timbers  of  the  Chapel  door.  But 
his  eyes  were  not  upon  her  as  he  went  on,  unconsciously,  to 
deal  the  last,  worst  blow. 

"  I  said,  ma'am,  that  my  dead  friend  .  .  .  the  name  is 
Richard  Mildare,  Captain,  late  of  the  Grey  Hussars.  .  .  . 
You  are  ill,  ma'am.  I  have  been  inconsiderate,  and  over-tired 
you."  He  had  become  aware  that  great  dark  circles  had 
drawn  themselves  round  her  eyes,  and  that  even  her  lips  were 
colourless.  She  said,  with  a  valiant  effort : 

"  I  assure  you,  with  thanks,  that  you  have  been  most  con- 
siderate, and  that  I  am  perfectly  well.  Are  you  at  liberty  to 
tell  me,  sir,  the  date  of  Captain  Mildare's  death?  For  I  know 
one  who  was  also  his  friend,  and  would  " — a  spasm  passed 
over  her  face — "  take  an  interest  in  knowing  the  particulars." 

"  Madam,  you  shall  know  what  I  know  myself.  About 
twenty  years  ago  Captain  Mildare,  owing  to  certain  unhappy 
social  circumstances,  not  pecuniary  ones,  sent  in  his  papers, 
sold  his  Commission,  and  left  England." 

She  waited. 

"  I  heard  of  him  in  Paris.  Then,  later,  I  heard  from  him. 
He  was  with  her  here  in  South  Africa.  She  was  a  woman  for 
whom  he  had  given  up  everything.  They  travelled  continually, 
never  resting  long  anywhere,  he,  and  she,  and — their  child. 
She  died  on  the  trek,  and  he  buried  her." 

"Yes?" 

The  voice  was  curiously  toneless. 

"  Where  he  buried  her  has  only  recently  come  to  my  knowl- 
edge. It  was  at  a  kind  of  veld  tavern  in  the  Orange  Free 
State,  somewhere  in  the  grass  country  between  Driepoort  and 
Kroonfontein,  where  travellers  can  get  a  lodging,  and  bad 
liquor,  and  worse  company.  '  Trekkers  Plaats '  they  call  the 
place  now.  But  when  my  friend  was  there  ft  was  known  as 
the  '  Free  State  Hotel.'  " 

Her  lips  shut  as  if  to  keep  out  bitter,  drowning  waters ;  her 
face  was  white  as  wax  within  the  starched  blue-white  of  the 
nun's  coif;  his  slow  sentences  fell  one  by  one  upon  her  naked 
heart,  and  ate  their  way  in  like  vitriol.  Quite  well,  too  well, 
she  knew  what  was  coming. 

"  He  dug  her  grave  with  his  own  hands.  He  meant  to 
have  a  clergyman  read  the  Burial  Service  over  it,  but  before 
that  could  be  arranged  for  he  also  died — of  fever,  I  gather, 
though  nothing  is  very  clear,  except  that  the  two  graves  are 
there.  I  have  seen  them,  and  have  also  ascertained  that  what- 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  75 

ever  property  he  left  was  appropriated  by  the  scoundrel  who 
kept  the  hotel,  and  afterwards  sold  it,  and  cleared  out  of  South 
Africa;  and  that  the  child  is  not  to  be  found.  God  knows 
what  has  become  of  her!  The  man  who  robbed  her  father 
may  have  murdered  or  sold  her — or  taken  her  to  England.  A 
man  bearing  his  name  was  mixed  up  in  a  notorious  case  tried 
at  the  Central  Criminal  Court  five  years  ago.  And  the  case, 
which  ruined  a  well-known  West  End  surgeon,  involved  the 
death  of  a  young  woman.  I  trust  the  victim  may  not  have 
been  the  unhappy  girl  herself.  My  solicitors  in  London  have 
been  instructed  to  make  inquiries  towards  the  removal  of  that 
doubt.  .  .  ." 

If  those  keen  eyes  of  his  had  not  been  averted,  he  must  have 
seen  the  strong  shuddering  that  convulsed  the  woman's  frame, 
and  the  spasm  of  agony  that  wrung  the  lips  she  pressed  to- 
gether, and  the  glistening  damps  of  anguish  that  broke  out 
upon  the  broad  white  forehead.  To  save  her  life  she  could 
not  have  said  to  him,  "  She  whom  you  seek  is  here."  But  a 
voice  wailed  in  her  heart,  more  piercingly  than  Rachel's,  and 
it  cried:  "Richard's  daughter.  She  is  Richard's  daughter! 
The  homeless  thing,  the  blighted  child  I  found  upon  the  veld, 
and  nursed  back  to  life  and  happiness  and  forgetfulness  of  a 
hideous  past ;  whom  I  took  into  my  empty  heart,  and  taught  to 
call  me  Mother.  .  .  .  She  is  the  fruit  of  my  own  betrayal, 
the  offspring  of  the  friend  who  deceived  and  the  man  who 
deserted  me." 

The  visitor  was  going  on,  his  grave  gaze  still  averted: 
"  Of  course,  the  age  of  the  woman  whose  death  brought  about 
the  trial  I  speak  of — everything  depends  upon  that.  Mildare's 
daughter  was  a  child  of  three  years  old  when  she  lost  father 
and  mother.  If  she  is  alive  to-day  she  would  be  nearly  twenty 
years  of  age.  I  wish  it  had  been  my  good  fortune  to  trace  and 
find  her.  She  should  have  had  the  opportunity  of  growing  up 
to  be  a  noble  woman.  In  this  place,  if  it  might  have  been, 
and  with  an  example  like  yours  before  her  eyes  .  .  .  ma'am, 
good-afternoon." 

He  bowed  to  her,  and  went  away  with  short,  quick,  even 
steps,  following  the  lay-Sister  who  was  to  take  him  to  the 
gate. 

She  tottered  into  the  Chapel,  and  sank  down  before  the 
Altar,  and  strove  to  pray.  Her  mind  was  an  eddying  black- 
ness shot  with  the  livid  glare  of  electric  fires.  Her  faith 
rocked  like  a  palm  in  the  tempest;  her  soul  was  tossed  across 


76  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

raging  billows  like  a  vessel  in  the  grip  of  the  cyclone.  Being 
so  great,  she  suffered  greatly;  being  so  strong,  she  had  strong 
passions  to  wrestle  with  and  to  subdue.  Awhile,  like  that 
other  Mary,  who,  unlike  her,  was  a  fleshly  sinner,  she  strove, 
rent  as  it  seemed  to  her,  by  seven  devils.  And  then  she  fell 
down  prone  at  her  Master's  nail-pierced  Feet,  and  found  there 
at  last  the  healing  gift  of  tears. 


XII 

EMIGRATION  JANE,  the  new  under-housemaid  on  trial  at  the 
Convent,  had  a  gathering  on  the  top  joint  of  the  first  finger 
of  the  hand  that  burned  to  wear  Walt  Slabbert's  betrothal- 
ring,  and  the  abscess  being  ripe  for  the  lancet,  she  had  an  extra 
afternoon  in  the  week  to  get  it  attended  to.  She  found  Walt 
waiting  at  the  street  corner  under  the  lamp-post,  and  her  heart 
bounded,  for  by  their  punctuality  at  the  trysting-place  you 
know  whether  they  are  serious  in  their  intentions  towards  you, 
or  merely  carrying  on,  and  her  other  young  men  had  invariably 
kept  her  waiting.  This  new  one  was  class,  and  no  mistake. 

"Watto,  Walt!"  she  hailed  joyously. 

Her  Walt  uttered  a  guttural  greeting  in  the  Taal,  and  dis- 
played uncared-for  and  moss-grown  teeth  in  the  smile  that 
Emigration  Jane  found  strangely  fascinating.  To  the  eye  that 
did  not  survey  Walt  through  the  rose-coloured  glasses  of  affec- 
tion he  appeared  merely  as  a  high-shouldered,  slab-sided,  young 
Boer,  whose  cheap  store  clothes  bagged  where  they  did  not 
crease,  and  whose  boots  curled  upwards  at  the  toes  with 
medieval  effect.  His  cravat,  of  a  lively  green,  patterned  with 
yellow  rockets,  warred  with  his  tallowy  complexion;  his  drab- 
coloured  hair  hung  in  clumps;  he  was  growing  a  beard  that 
sprouted  in  reddish  tufts  from  the  tough  hide  of  his  jaws,  leav- 
ing bare  patches  between,  like  the  karroo.  The  Slabbert  was 
an  assistant-clerk  at  the  Gueldersdorp  Railway-Station  Parcels- 
Office,  and  his  widowed  mother,  the  Tante  Slabbert,  took  in 
washing  from  Uitlanders  who  are  mad  enough  to  change  their 
underwear  with  frequency,  and  did  the  cleaning  at  the 
Gerevormed  Kerk  at  Rustenberg,  a  duty  which  involves  the 
emptying  of  spittoons.  Her  boy  was  her  joy  and  pride. 

Young  Walt,  the  true  Boer's  son  that  he  was,  did  not  enter- 
tain the  idea  of  marrying  Emigration  Jane.  The  child  of  the 
Amaiekite  might  ne^ei  jjgjjrought  home  as  bride  to  the  Slab- 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  77 

bert  roof.  But  all  the  same,  her  style,  which  was  that  of  the 
Alexandra  Crescent,  Kentish  Town,  London,  N.W.,  and  her 
manners,  which  were  easy,  and  her  taste  in  dress,  which  was 
kaleidoscopic,  attracted  him.  As  regards  their  spoken  inter- 
course, it  had  been  hampered  by  the  Slabbertian  habit  of  pre- 
tending only  a  limited  acquaintance  with  the  barbarous  dialect 
of  England.  But  a  young  man  who  conversed  chiefly  by 
grunts,  nudges,  and  signs  was  infinitely  more  welcome  than  no 
young  man  at  all,  and  Emigration  Jane  knew  that  the  language 
of  love  is  universal.  She  had  sent  him  a  lovely  letter  in  the 
Taal  making  this  appointment,  causing  his  pachydermatous 
hide  to  know  the  needle-prick  of  curiosity.  For  only  last 
Sabbath  she  had  spoken  nothing  but  the  English,  and  a  young 
woman  capable  of  mastering  Boer  Dutch  in  a  week  might  be 
made  useful  in  a  variety  of  ways — some  of  them  tortuous,  all 
of  them  secret,  as  the  Slabbertian  ways  were  wont  to  be. 

He  advanced  to  her,  without  the  needless  ceremony  of 
touching  his  hat,  eagerly  asking  how  she  had  acquired  her  new 
accomplishment? 

But  the  brain  crowned  by  the  big  red  hat  that  had  come 
from  the  Maison  Cluny,  and  cost  a  hundred  francs,  and  had 
been  smartened  up  with  a  bunch  of  pink  and  yellow  artificial 
roses,  and  three  imitation  ostrich-tips  of  a  cheerful  blue,  did 
not  comprehend.  Someone  who  spoke  the  Taal  had  written 
for  her.  The  bilingual  young  woman  who  was  to  be  of  such 
use  to  Walt  had  only  existed  in  his  dreams.  And  yet — the 
disappointing  creature  was  exceeding  fair. 

"  Pity  you  left  your  eyes  be'ind  you,  Dutchy!  "  giggled  Emi- 
gration Jane,  deliciously  conscious  that  those  rather  muddy 
orbs  were  glued  on  her  admiringly. 

The  hair  crowned  by  the  screaming  hat  was  waved  and 
rolled  over  the  horsehair  frame  she  had  learned  to  call  a 
"  Pompydore  " ;  the  front  locks,  usually  confined  in  the  iron 
cages  called  "  curlers,"  frizzled  wonderfully  about  her  moist, 
crimson  face.  She  had  on  a  "  voylet  "  delaine  skirt,  with  three 
bias  bands  round  the  bottom,  and  a  "  blowse  "  of  transparent 
muslin  stamped  with  floral  devices.  Her  shoes  were  of  white 
canvas ;  her  stockings  pink  and  open-worked ;  her  gloves  were 
of  white  thread,  and  had  grown  grey  in  the  palms  with  agita- 
tion. One  of  them  firmly  grasped  a  crimson  "  sunshyde,"  with 
green  and  scarlet  cherries  growing  out  of  the  end  of  the  stick. 

The  young  Dopper  warmly  grasped  the  other,  provoking  a 
squeal  from  the  enchantress.. 


78  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

"Mind  me  bad  finger!  Lumme!  you  did  give  us  a  squeeze, 
an'  a  'arf." 

"  If  I  shall  to  hurt  you  I  been  sorry,  Miss,"  apologized  the 
Slabbert. 

"  All  righto,  Dutchy,"  smiled  Emigration  Jane.  "  Don't 
tear  your  features."  She  bestowed  a  glance  of  almost  vocal 
disdain  upon  a  Kaffir  girl  in  turkey-red  cotton  twill,  with  a 
green  hat  savagely  pinned  upon  her  woolly  hair.  At  another 
ebony  female  who  advanced  along  the  sidewalk  pushing  a 
white  baby  in  a  perambulator  she  tossed  her  head.  "  Funny," 
she  observed,  "  when  I  was  'ome  I  used  to  swaller  all  the  tales 
what  parsons  kep'  pitchin'  about  that  black  lot  'aving  souls 
like  me  an'  you.  When  I  got  out  'ere,  an'  took  my  fust  place 
at  Cape  Town,  an'  'card  the  Missis  and  the  Master  continual 
sayin',  '  Don't  do  this  or  that,  it  ain't  Englishwomen's  work ; 
leave  it  to  the  Caffy,'  or  '  Call  the  'Ottintot  gal,'  I  felt  quite 
'urt  for  'em.  Upon  me  natural,  I  did!  But  when  I  knoo 
these  blackies  a  bit  better,  I  didn't  make  no  more  bones. 
Monkeys,  they  are,  rigged  up  in  brown  'olland  an'  red  braid, 
wot  'ave  immytated  'uman  beings  till  they've  come  to  talk 
langwidge  wot  we  can  understand,  and  tumble  to  our  mean- 
ings. 'Ow  do  you  like  me  dress,  Walty  dear?  An'  me  'at? 
That  chap  what  passed  with  the  red  mustash  said  to  'is  friend 
as  I  looked  a  bit  of  fair  all  right,  and  no  mistake.  But  I'd 
rather  'ear  you  say  so  nor  'im  if  you  'ad  enough  English  to 
do  it  with.  Wot  do  I  care  about  the  perisher  along  of  you." 

It  was  hard  work  to  talk  for  two,  and  keep  the  ball  of 
courtship  rolling  after  the  approved  fashion  of  Kentish  Town, 
when  the  slouching  young  Boer  would  only  grunt  in  reply,  or 
twinkle  at  her  out  of  his  piggish  eyes.  But  Emigration  Jane 
had  come  out  to  South  Africa,  hearing  that  places  at  five 
shillings  a  day  were  offered  you  by  employers,  literally  upon 
their  knees,  and  that  husbands  were  thick  as  orange-peel  and 
programmes  on  the  pit-floor  of  the  "  Bntanniar  Theayter," 
"  'Oxton,"  or  the  Camden  Varieties  on  the  morning  after  a 
Bank  Holiday.  She  had  left  her  first  situation  at  Cape  Town, 
being  a  girl  of  spirit,  because  her  mistress  had  neglected  to  in- 
troduce her  to  eligible  gentlemen  acquaintances,  as  the  pleasant- 
spoken  agent  at  the  Emigrants'  Information  Office  in  Cheap- 
side,  the  young  gentleman  of  Hebrew  strain,  whose  dark  eyes, 
waxed  moustache,  and  diamond  tie-pin  had  made  a  deep  im- 
pression upon  the  susceptible  heart  of  his  client,  had  assured 
Jane  the  South  African  employer  would  take  an  early  oppor- 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  79 

tunity  of  doing.  The  reality  had  not  corresponded  with  the 
glowing  picture.  The  employer  had  failed  in  duty,  the  hus- 
bands-aspirant had  not  appeared.  Ephemeral  flirtations  there 
had  been  with  a  postman,  with  a  trooper  of  the  Cape  Mounted 
Police,  with  an  American  bar-tender.  But  not  one  of  these 
had  breathed  of  indissoluble  union,  though  each  had  wanted  to 
borrow  her  savings.  And  Emigration  Jane  had  "  bin  'ad  "  in 
that  way  before,  and  gone  with  her  bleeding  heart  and  depleted 
Post  Office  Savings-book  before  the  fat,  sallow  magistrate  at 
the  Regent's  Road  County  Court,  and  winced  and  smarted 
under  his  brutal  waggeries,  only  to  learn  that  the  appropriator 
of  her  womanly  affections  and  her  fifteen  sovereigns  had  already 
three  wives. 

The  brute,  the  'artless  beast!  Emigration  Jane  wondered 
at  herself,  she  did,  and  'ud  bin  such  a  reg'ler  soft  as  to  be  took 
in  by  one  to  whom  she  never  referred  in  speech  except  as 
"  That  There  Green."  That  she  softened  to  him  in  her 
weaker  moments,  in  spite  of  his  remembered  appetite  for  sav- 
ings and  his  regrettable  multiplicity  of  wives,  gave  her  the 
fair  hump.  That  something  in  the  expression  of  this  new 
one's  muddy  eyes  recalled  the  loving  leer  of  "  That  There 
Green,"  she  admitted  to  herself.  Womanly  anxiety  throbbed 
in  the  bosom  not  too  coyly  hidden  by  the  pneumonia  blouse,  as 
the  couple  passed  the  gilded  portals  of  a  public  bar,  and  the 
Slabbert  elbow  was  thrust  painfully  into  her  side,  as  its  owner 
said  heavily: 

"  Have  you  thirst  ?  " 

She  coyly  owned  to  aridity,  and  they  entered  the  saloon, 
kept  by  a  Dutchman  wrho  spoke  English.  Two  ginger-beers 
with  a  stick  of  Hollands  were  supplied,  and  the  stick  of  Slab- 
bert was  as  the  rod  of  Moses  to  the  other  stick  for  strength 
and  power.  But  as  Emigration  Jane  daintily  sipped  the  cool- 
ing beverage,  giggling  at  the  soapy  bubbles  that  snapped  at  her 
nose,  the  restless  worm  of  anxiety  kept  on  gnawing  under  the 
flowery  "  blowze."  Too  well  did  she  know  the  ways  of  young 
men  who  hospitably  ask  you  if  you're  thirsty,  and  'ave  you  in, 
whether  or  no,  and  order  drinks  as  liberal  as  lords,  and  then 
discover  that  they're  short  of  the  bob,  and  borrow  from  you  in 
3-  jokey  way.  «,  .  .  Her  heart  bounded  as  the  Slabbert  put  his 
hand  in  his  pocket,  saying: 

"Watkostbret?" 

The  Dutch  bar-keeper,  who  seemed  to  know  Slabbert,  an- 
swwed  in  English,  looking  at  Emigration  Jane: 


8o  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

"  Half  a  dollar." 

Half  a  dollar  is  South  African  for  eighteenpence.  Slabbert 
rattled  something  metallic  in  his  trousers-pocket,  and  said 
something  rapidly  in  the  Taal.  The  Dutch  bar-keeper  leaned 
across  the  counter,  and  sai'd  to  Emigration  Jane: 

"  Your  young  man  has  not  got  the  money." 

They  were  all,  all  alike.  A  tear  rose  to  her  eye.  She 
bravely  dried  it  with  a  finger  of  a  white  cotton  glove,  and  pro- 
duced her  purse,  an  imitation  crocodile-leather  and  sham-silver 
affair,  bought  in  Kentish  Town,  where  you  may  walk  through 
odorous  groves  of  dried  haddocks  that  are  really  whiting,  and 
Yarmouth  bloaters  that  never  were  at  Yarmouth,  and  purchase 
whole  rambler  roses,  the  latest  Paris  style,  for  threepence,  and 
cheapen  feather-boas  at  two-and-eleven-three,  plucked  from  the 
defunct  carcass  of  the  domestic  fowl.  She  paid  for  the  drinks 
with  a  florin,  and  it  was  quite  like  old  times  when  Slabbert 
calmly  pocketed  the  sixpence  of  change.  The  bar-keeper 
leaned  over  to  her  again,  and  said,  surrounding  her  with  a 
confidential  atmosphere  of  tobacco  and  schnaps: 

"  He  is  a  good  man,  that  young  man  of  yours,  and  gets 
much  money.  He  means  to  give  you  a  nice  present  by-and- 
by." 

Her  grateful  heart  overflowed  to  this  friendly  patronage. 
She  showed  the  bar-keeper  her  gathered  finger,  and  said  it  did 
'urt  a  treat.  She  expected  it  would  'urt  worse  before  Dr.  De 
Boursy  Williams — "  'adn't  'e  got  a  toff's  name?" — 'ad  done 
with  it. 

"You  go  to  that  Engelsch  doktor  on  Harris  Street,  eh?" 
said  the  bar-keeper,  spitting  dexterously.  "  Wat  scheelt  er 
aan  ? — how  are  you  sick,  eh  ?  " 

"  Sister  Tobias — that's  the  nun  wot  'ousekeeps  at  the  Con- 
vent— give  me  a  order  to  see  'im,  to  'ave  me  finger  larnced," 
explained  Emigration  Jane.  "  Ain't  'e  all  right  ?  " 

"  Right  enough,"  said  the  bar-keeper,  winking  at  the  Slab- 
bert, and  adding  something  in  the  Taal,  that  provoked  a  fine 
exhibition  of  that  young  man's  neglected  teeth.  "  There  are 
plenty  other  Engelsch  will  be  wishing  to  be  as  right,  oh, 
very  soon.  For  De  Boursy  Williams,  he  has  sent  his  wife  and 
his  two  daughters  away  on  the  train  for  Cape  Town  yesterday 
morning,  and  he  has  gone  after  them  that  same  night,  and  he 
has  left  all  his  patients  to  the  Dop  Doctor." 

"  Some  red-necked  baboons  are  wiser  than  others,"  said  the 
Slabbert  in  the  Taal,  and  there  was  a  hoarse  laugh,  and  the 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  Si 

humourist  turned  his  big  heavy  body  away,  and  became  one  of 
a  crowd  of  other  Dutchmen,  who  were,  in  veiled  hints  and 
crooked  allusions,  discussing  the  situation  across  the  Border. 
Emigration  Jane  was  not  sensitive  to  the  electricity  in  the 
atmosphere.  She  knew  no  Dutch,  and  was  perfect  in  the 
etiquette  of  the  outing,  which,  when  the  young  woman  has 
been  supplied  with  the  one  regulation  drink,  stands  her  up  in 
the  corner  like  an  umbrella  in  dry  weather  as  long  as  her  young 
man  is  a-talking  to  'is  pals. 

"  So,"  the  bar-keeper  went  on,  "  if  you  shall  want  that  bad 
finger  of  yours  looked  to,  you  will  have  to  wait  until  the  Dop 
Doctor  wakes  up.  He  is  a  big  man,  who  can  drink  as  much 
as  three  Boers.  .  .  .  He  came  in  this  morning  to  get  drunk, 
and  you  shall  not  wake  him  now  if  you  fire  off  a  rifle  at  his 
ear.  But  he  will  get  up  presently  and  shake  himself,  and  then 
he  will  be  quite  steady;  you  would  not  guess  how  drunk  he 
had  been  unless  you  had  seen.  .  .  .  He  is  over  there,  sleeping 
on  that  table  in  the  corner,  and  it  will  be  very  bad  for  the 
man  who  shall  wake  him  up.  For,  look  you,  that  Dop  Doctor 
is  a  duyvel.  I  have  seen  him  break  a  man  like  a  stick  between 
his  hands  for  nothing  but  cutting  up  a  thieving  monkey  of  a 
little  Kaffir  with  the  sjambok.  And  he  took  the  verdoemte  thing 
home  where  he  lives,  they  say,  and  strapped  up  its  black  hide 
with  plaster,  and  set  its  arm  as  if  it  had  been  a  child  of  Chris- 
tians. But  every  Engelschman  is  mad.  Groot  Brittanje 
breeds  a  nation  of  madmen." 

The  saloon  got  fuller  and  fuller.  The  air  solidified  with 
the  Taal  and  the  tobacco,  and  other  things  less  pleasant.  It 
was  not  the  hour  for  a  crowd  of  customers,  but  nobody  had 
seemed  to  be  working  much  of  late.  They  were  all  Trans- 
vaalers  and  Free  Staters,  tradesmen  of  the  town,  or  Boers  from 
outlying  farms,  and  not  a  man  there  but  was  waiting  a  certain 
signal  to  clear  out  and  leave  Gueldersdorp  to  her  fate,  or  re- 
main in  the  place  on  a  salary  paid  by  the  Republic  as  a  spy. 
The  English  customer  who  came  in  knew  at  one  whiff  of  the 
thick  atmosphere  that  it  was  unhealthy,  and  if  the  man  hap- 
pened to  be  alone,  he  ordered,  and  paid,  and  drank,  and  went 
out  quickly.  If  he  happened  to  be  with  others,  he  pointedly 
addressed  his  conversation  to  his  countrymen,  and  left  with  a 
certain  degree  of  swagger,  and  without  the  appearance  of  undue 
haste. 

Once  the  swing-doors  of  the  saloon  opened  to  admit  a  short, 
spare,  hollow-chested,  dapper  young  Englishman,  whose  in- 


82  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

significant  Cockney  countenance  was  splashed  with  orange- 
coloured  freckles  of  immense  size.  Between  his  thin  anasmic 
lips  dangled  the  inevitable  cigarette.  And  Emigration  Jane, 
toying  with  the  dregs  of  her  tumbler,  recognised  the  pert, 
sharp,  sallow  face  seen  over  the  sleeve  of  a  large  burgher's  out- 
stretched arm.  With  some  trouble  she  caught  the  eye  of  the 
short,  pale  young  man,  and  he  instantly  became  a  red  one. 
To  reach  her  was  difficult,  but  he  dived  and  wriggled  his  way 
across  the  saloon,  wedging  his  frail  person  between  the  block- 
ish bodies  with  a  cool  address  that  reminded  her  of  the  first 
night  of  a  "  noo  show"  at  the  Camden  "  Theayter,"  and  the 
queue  outside  the  gallery  door. 

'  'Ullo,  'ullo !  Thought  I  reckonized  you,  miss."  He  touched 
his  cheap  imitation  Panama  with  swaggering  gallantry,  and 
winked.  "  But  seeing  you  eight  sizes  more  of  a  toff  than 
what  you  were  when  I  previously  'ad  the  pleasure,  I  'esitated 
to  tip  you  the  'Ow  do." 

She  tossed  her  imitation  ostrich  plumes  in  joyous  coquetry. 

"  As  if  I  didn't  know  wot  you're  after.  Garn !  You  only 
wants  to  know  if  I  acted  on  the  stryte  about.  .  .  ." 

His  projecting  ears  burned  crimson. 

"  Well,  an'  suppose  I  do.     Did  she " 

"Did  she  wot?" 

"You  pipe  well  enough.     Did  she  'ave  it?" 

"Ain't  you  anxious?" 

'  Take  it  I  am  anxious.     Did  she  ?     No  cod  ?  " 

"  Di'd  she  git  your  letter  wot  you  put  in  the  box  o'  choc's? 
O'  course  she  did,  Mister.  Wot  d'jer  take  me  for?  A  silly 
looney  or  a  sneakin'  thief  ?  " 

"  I'll  tell  you  what  I  tyke  you  for.  A  jolly  little  bit  of 
English  All  Right.  Say!  Do  you  think  .  .  ."  The  promi- 
nent Adam's  apple  jutting  over  the  edge  of  the  guillotining 
double  collar  worked  emotionally.  "  Think  she'll  send  an 
answer,  eh?" 

"  Reckon  she  will ;  you  watch  out  an'  see." 

"You  furst-clarss  little  brick!" 

"Garn!" 

"  I  mean  it.  Stryte.  Next  door  to  a  angel — that's  wot 
you  are.  She's  the  angel.  Tell  'er  I  said  so — that's  if  you 
can,  you  twig?  And  say  that  when  I  'card  that  nearly  all  the 
gay  ole  crowd  o'  pupils  'ad  gone  away,  day  before  yesterday, 
I  could  'a  blooming  well  cut  me  throat,  thinkin'  she'd  gone 
too.  Becos'  when  I  swore  in  for  the  Town  Guard,  it  was  the 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  83 

idear — mind  you  rub  that  in! — of  strikin'  a  blow  for  Beauty 
as  well  as  for  Britanniar,  twig?"  The  thin  elbow  in  the 
tweed  sleeve  nudged  her,  provoking  a  joyous  giggle. 

"  I'm  fly,  no  fear.  Are  you  to  'ave  a  uniform,  an*  all 
like  that?" 

His  face  fell.  "The  kit  don't  run  to  much  beyond  a 
smasher  'at  an'  putties,  but  they're  the  regular  Service  kind, 
an'  then  there's  the  bandolier — an'  the  gun.  She  ain't  the 
newest  rifle  served  out  to  Her  Majesty's  army,  not  by  twenty 
years.  Condemned  Martini,  a  chap  says,  who's  in  the  know, 
an'  kicks  like  a  mule  when  I  let  'er  off — made  me  nose  bleed 
fust  time  I  tried  with  blank.  But  when  we  gets  a  bit  more 
used  to  each  other,  it  '11  be  a  case  of  bloomin'  Doppers  rollin' 
over  in  the  dust,  like  rock-rabbits.  Don't  forget  to  tell  'er  as 
wot  I  said  so." 

"  Why  .  .  .  ain't  she  a  Dutchy  herself  ?  She  wrote  a  letter 
for  me  in  their  rummy  lingo  to  my  young  man!  " 

"Cr'rips!"  He  clicked  dismay.  "Blessed  if  I  'adn't  for- 
got. But  if  an  Englishman  marries  a  foreigner,"  he  swelled 
heroic,  "  that  puts  'er  in  the  straight  runnin'.  And  'art  an' 
'and  I'm  'ers,  whenever  she'll  'ave  me!  Tell  'er  THAT — 
with  a  double  row  of  crosses  from  W.  Keyse.  And — can  you 
remember  a  bit  o'  poetry?"  He  recited  with  shamefaced 
rapidity: 

"'It  is  my  sentry-go  to-night, 

And  when  I  watch  the  moon  so  bright, 

Shining  o'er  South  Africa  plain, 

I'll  think  of  thee,  sweet  Greta  Du  Taine.' " 

Her  eyes  were  full  of  awe  and  wonder.  "  Lor !  you  don't 
mean  to  say  you  made  up  that  by  yourself?  " 

The  poet  nodded.     "Reckon  about  as  much.     Like  it?" 

"It's  perfect  lovely!  Better  than  they  'ave  in  the  penny 
books." 

"  Where  Coralline  and  the  Marquis  are  playin'  the  spooney 
game,  and  'im  with  a  Lady  Reginer  up  'is  dirty  sleeve.  An' 
there's  another  thing  I  want  you  to  let  'er  know."  His  eyes 
were  on  hers,  his  breath  fanned  her  hot  cheeks.  "  There  isn't 
another  woman  on  the  earth  but  her  for  me.  Dessay  there 
may  be  others ;  wot  I  say  is — I  don't  see  'em !  "  He  waved  his 
hand,  dismissing  the  ardent  creatures. 
A  pang  transpierced  the  conscience  hiding  under  the  cheap 


84  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

flowery  blouse.  Emigration  Jane  hesitated,  biting  the  dog's- 
eared  finger-ends  of  a  cotton  glove.  Should  she  tell  this 
ardent,  chivalrous  lover  that  the  Convent  roof  no  longer 
sheltered  the  magnificent  fair  hair-plait  and  the  mischievous 
blue  eyes  of  his  adored  ?  That  Miss  Greta  Du  Taine  had  left  ' 
for  Johannesburg  with  the  earliest  batch  of  departing  pupils! 
If  she  told,  W.  Keyse  would  vanish  out  of  her  life,  it  might 
be  for  ever;  or,  if  by  chance  encountered  on  the  street,  pass  by 
with  a  casual  greeting  and  a  touch  of  the  cheap  Panama. 
Emigration  Jane  was  no  heroine,  only  a  daughter  of  Eve. 
Arithmetic  and  what  was  termed  the  "  tonic  sofa  "  had  been 
more  sternly  inculcated  than  the  moral  virtues  at  the  Board 
School  in  Kentish  Town.  And  she  was  not  long  in  making 
up  her  mind  that  she  would  not  tell  him — not  just  yet,  any- 
\vay. 

What  was  he  saying,  in  the  Cockney  that  cut  like  a  knife 
through  the  thick  gutturals  of  the  Taal ?  "I  shall  walk  past 
the  Convent  to-morrer  in  kit  and  cetras,  on  the  charnce  of  'Er 
seein'  me.  Two  sharp.  And,  look  'ere,  Miss,  you've  done 
me  a  good  turn.  And — no  larks! — if  ever  I  can  do  you  an- 
other— trust  me.  Stryte — I  mean  it!  You  ask  chaps  'oo 
know  me  if  Billy  Keyse  ever  went  back  on  a  pal." 

She  swayed  her  hips,  and  disclaimed  all  obligation.  But, 
garn !  he  was  gittin'  at  'er,  she  knew ! 

"I  ain't;  I  mean  it!  You  should  'ave  'arf  me  'eredittary 
estates — if  I  'ad  any.  As  I  'aven't,  say  wot  you'll  drink? 
Do,  Miss,  to  oblige  yours  truly,  W.  Keyse,  Esquire." 

Billy  Keyse  plunged  a  royal,  reckless  hand  into  the  pocket 
of  his  tweed  riding-breeches,  bought  against  the  time  \vhen 
he  should  bestride  something  nobler  than  a  bicycle,  and  pro- 
duced a  half-sovereign.  He  owed  it  to  his  landlady  and  the 
rest,  the  coin  that  he  threw  down  so  magnificently  on  the  shiny 
counter,  but  you  do  not  treat  your  good  angel  every  day.  .  .  . 
Emigration  Jane  bridled,  and  swayed  her  hips  still  more.  His 
largeness  was  intoxicating.  One  had  dreamed  of  meeting 
such  young  meft. 

"  Port  or  sherry?  Or  a  glass  of  cham,  with  a  lump  o'  ice 
in  for  a  cooler?  They  keep  the  stuff  on  draught  'ere,  and  not 
bad  by  'arf  for  South  Africa.  'Ere,  you,  Mister!  Two 
chams  for  self  and  the  young  lydy,  an'  look  slippy !  " 

The  brimming  glasses  of  sparkling,  creaming  fluid,  juice  of 
vines  that  never  grew  in  the  historic  soil  of  France,  were 
passed  over  the  bar.  A  miniature  berg  clinked  in  each,  the 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  85 

coldness  of   its  contact   with    the   glowing   lip   forcing  slight 
rapturous  shrieks  from  Emigration  Jane. 

"We'll  drink  'Er  'ealth!"  Billy  Keyse  raised  his  goblet. 
"And  Friends  at  'Ome  in  our  Isle  across  the  Sea!" 

He  drank,  pleased  with  the  sentiment,  and  set  down  the 
empty  glass. 

The  Dutch  bar-keeper  leaned  across  the  counter,  and  tapped 
him  on  the  arm  with  a  thick,  stubby  forefinger. 

"  Mister  Engelschman,  I  think  you  shall  best  go  out  of 
here." 

"Me?  Go  out?  'Oo  are  you  gettin'  at,  Myn'eer  Van 
Dunck  ? "  swaggered  Billy  Keyse.  And  he  slipped  one  thin, 
freckled  hand  ostentatiously  under  his  coat  of  shoddy  summer 
tweed.  A  very  cheap  revolver  lurked  in  the  hip-pocket  of 
which  Billy  was  so  proud.  In  his  fourth-floor  front  bed-sitting- 
room  in  Judd  Street,  London,  W.C.,  he  had  promised  himself 
a  moment  when  that  hip-pocket  should  be  referred  to,  just  in 
that  way.  It  was  a  cheap  bit  of  theatrical  swagger,  but  the  sa- 
loon was  full,  not  of  harmless  theatrical  pretences,  but  bitter 
racial  antagonisms,  seething  animosities,  fanged  and  venomed 
hatreds,  only  waiting  the  prearranged  signal  to  strike  and 
slay. 

Emigration  Jane  tugged  at  the  hero's  sleeve,  as  he  felt  for 
an  almost  invisible  moustache,  scanning  the  piled-up,  serried 
faces  with  pert,  pale,  hardy  eyes. 

' '  E  ain't  coddin'.  See  'ow  black  they're  lookin'." 

"  I  see  'em,  syfe  enough.  Waxworks  only  fit  for  the  Cham- 
ber of  'Orrors,  ain't  'em?" 

"  It's  a  young  woman  wot  arsks  yer  to  go,  not  a  bloke! 
Please.  For  my  syke,  if  yer  won't  for  yer  own !  " 

Billy  Keyse,  with  a  flourish,  offered  the  thin,  boyish  arm  in 
the  tweed  sleeve. 

"  Righto.     Will  you  allow  me,  Miss?" 

She  faltered: 

"  I — I  can't,  dear.     I — I'm  wiv  my — young  man." 

"  Looks  after  you  a  proper  lot,  I  don't  think.  Which  is  him? 
Where's  'e  'id  'isself?  There's  only  one  other  English-lookin* 
feller'  ere,  an  he's  drunk,  lyin'  over  the  table  there  in  the  corner. 
That  ain't  'im,  is  it?" 

"  Nah,  that  isn't  'im.  That  big  Dutchy,  lookin'  this  way, 
showin'  'is  teeth  as  'e  smiles.  That's  my  young  man." 

She  indicated  the  Slabbert,  heavily  observant  of  the  couple 
with  the  muddy  eyes  under  the  tow-coloured  thatch. 


86  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

"  'Strewth !  "  W.  Keyse  whistled  deprecatingly  between  his 
teeth,  and  elevated  his  scanty  eyebrows.  "  That  tow-'eaded, 
bung-nosed,  'ulking,  big  Dopper.  An'  you  a  daughter  of  the 
Empire!  " 

Oh,  the  thrice-retorted  scorn  in  the  sharp-edged  Cockney 
voice!  The  scorching  contempt  in  the  pale,  ugly  little  eyes  of 
Billy  Keyse!  She  wilted  to  her  tallest  feather,  and  the  tears 
came  crowding,  stinging  the  back  of  her  throat,  compelling  a 
miserable  sniff.  Yet  Emigration  Jane  was  not  destitute  of 
spirit. 

"I....  I  took  'im  to  please  meself . . .  .not  you,  nor  the 
Hempire  neither." 

"  Reckon  you  was  precious  'ard  up  for  a  chap.  Good- 
afternoon,  miss." 

He  touched  the  cheap  Panama,  and  swung  theatrically  round 
on  his  heel.  Between  him  and  the  saloon-door  there  was  a 
solid  barricade  of  heavy  Dutch  bodies,  in  moleskin,  tan-cord, 
and  greasy  homespun,  topped  by  lowering  Dutch  faces.  Brawny 
right  hands  that  could  have  choked  the  reedy  crow  out  of  the 
little  bantam  gamecock,  clenched  in  the  baggy  pockets  of  old 
shooting-jackets.  Others  gripped  leaded  sjamboks,  and 
others  crept  to  hip-pockets,  where  German  army  revolvers 
were.  The  bar-keeper  and  the  Slabbert  exchanged  a  meaning 
wink. 

"Gents,  I'll  trouble  you.     By  yer  leave?  .  .  ." 

Nobody  moved.  And  suddenly  Billy  Keyse  was  conscious 
that  these  were  enemies,  and  that  he  was  alone.  A  little  hooli- 
ganism, a  few  street-fights,  one  scuffle  with  the  police,  some 
rows  in  music-halls  constituted  all  his  experience.  In  the  midst 
of  these  men,  burly,  brutal,  strong,  used  to  shed  blood  of  beast 
and  human,  his  cheap  swagger  failed  him  with  his  stock  of 
breath.  He  was  no  longer  the  hero  in  an  East  End  melodrama ; 
his  heroic  mood  had  gone,  and  there  was  a  feel  of  tragedy  in 
the  air.  The  Boers  waited  sluggishly  for  the  next  move.  It 
would  come  when  there  should  be  a  step  forward  on  the  part 
of  the  little  Englishman.  Then  a  clumsy  foot  in  a  cow-leather 
boot  or  heavy  wooden-pegged  veldschoen  would  be  thrust  out, 
and  the  boy  would  be  tripped  up  and  go  down,  and  the  crowd 
would  deliberately  kick  and  trample  the  life  out  of  him,  and 
no  one  would  be  able  to  say  how  or  by  whom  the  thing  had  been 
done.  And,  reading  in  the  hard  eyes  set  in  the  stolid  yellow 
and  drab  faces  that  he  was  "  up  against  it,"  and  no  mistake, 
Billy  Keyse  felt  singularly  small  and  lonely. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  87 

Then  something  happened. 

The  drunken  Englishman  who  had  been  lying  in  a  hoggish 
stupor  over  the  little  iron  table  in  the  corner  of  the  saloon 
hiccoughed,  and  lifted  a  crimson,  puffy  face,  with  bleary  eyes 
in  it  that  were  startlingly  blue.  He  drew  back  the  great  arms 
that  had  been  hanging  over  the  edge  of  his  impromptu  pillow, 
and  heaved  up  his  massive  stooping  shoulders,  and  got  slowly 
upon  his  feet.  Then,  lurching  in  his  walk,  but  not  stumbling, 
he  moved  across  the  little  space  of  damp,  sawdusted  floor  that 
divided  him  from  Billy  Keyse,  and  drew  up  beside  that  in- 
significant minority.  The  action  was  not  purposeless  nor  un- 
impressive. The  alcoholic  wastrel  had  suddenly  become  pro- 
tagonist in  the  common  little  drama  that  was  veering  towards 
tragedy.  Beside  the  man,  Billy  Keyse  dwindled  to  a  stunted 
boy,  a  steam-pinnace  bobbing  under  the  quarter  of  an  armoured 
battle-ship,  its  huge  mailed  bulk  pregnant  with  possibilities  of 
destruction,  in  barbettes  full  of  unseen,  watchful  eyes,  and 
hands  powerful  to  manipulate  the  levers  of  titanic  death- 
machines. 

Let  it  be  understood  that  the  intervener  did  not  present  the 
aspect  of  a  hero.  He  had  been  drunk,  and  would  be  again, 
unless  some  miraculous  quickening  of  the  alcohol-drugged 
brain-centres  should  rouse  and  revivify  the  dormant  will. 
His  square  face,  with  the  heavy  smudge  of  bushy  black  eye- 
brows over  the  blue  eyes,  and  the  short,  blunt,  hooked  nose, 
and  grim-lipped  yet  tender  mouth,  from  the  corner  of  which 
an  extinct  and  forgotten  cigar-butt  absurdly  jutted,  bore,  like 
his  great  gaunt  frame,  the  ravaging  traces  of  the  consuming 
drink-lust.  His  well-cut,  loosely-fitting  grey  morning-coat  and 
trousers  were  soiled  and  slovenly;  his  blue  linen  shirt  was  col- 
larless  and  unbuttoned  at  the  neck.  His  grey  felt  hat  was 
dinged,  and  crammed  on  awry.  But  there  was  a  thick  lanyard 
round  the  muscular  neck,  ending  in  a  leather  revolver-pouch 
that  was  attached  to  his  stout  belt  of  webbing.  A  boy  with  a 
fifteen-and-sixpenny  toy  revolver  you  can  laugh  at  and  squelch; 
but,  Alamachtig!  a  big  man  with  a  Webley  and  Scott  was  an- 
other thing.  And  the  frowsy  barrier  of  thick,  coarsely-clad, 
bulky  bodies  and  scowling,  yellow-tan  faces,  began  to  melt 
away. 

When  a  clear  lane  showed  to  the  saloon  door,  the  Dop 
Doctor  took  it,  walking  with  a  lurch  in  his  long  stride,  but 
with  the  square  head  held  upright  on  his  great  gaunt  shoulders.. 
Billy  Keyse  moved  in  the  shadow  of  him,  taking  two  steps  to 


88  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

one   of  his.     The  swing  doors   opened,   thudded   to    behind 
them.  .  .  . 

"  Outside.  .  .  .     Time,  too." 

The  wide,  lipless  Cockney  mouth  grinned  a  little  consciously 
as  Billy  Keyse  jerked  his  thumb  towards  the  still  vibrating  doors 
of  the  saloon.  "  Reg'ler  'ornets'  nest  o'  Dutchies.  And  I  was 
up  agynst  it,  an'  no  mistyke,  when  you  rallied  up.  An',  Mis- 
ter, you're  a  Fair  Old  Brick,  an'  if  you've  no  objection  to 
shykin'  'ands  ...  ?  " 

But  the  big  man  did  not  seem  to  see  the  little  Cockney's 
offered  hand.  He  nodded,  looking  with  the  bloodshot  and  ex- 
tremely blue  eyes  that  were  set  under  his  heavy  straight  black 
brows,  not  at  Billy  Keyse,  but  over  his  head,  and  with  a  surly 
noise  in  his  throat  that  stopped  short  of  being  speech,  swung 
heavily  round  and  went  down  the  dusty  street,  that  was  grilling 
in  the  full  blaze  of  the  afternoon  heat,  lurching  a  little  in  his 
walk. 

Then,  suddenly,  running  figures  of  men  came  round  the 
corner.  Voices  shouted,  and  houses  and  shops  and  saloons 
emptied  themselves  of  their  human  contents.  The  news  flew 
from  kerb  to  kerb,  and  jumped  to  upper  windows,  out  of  which 
women,  European  and  coloured,  thrust  frowsy,  questioning 
heads. 

The  Cape  Town  train  that  had  started  at  midday  had  re- 
turned to  Gueldersdorp,  having  been  held  up  by  a  force  of 
armed  and  mounted  Boers  twenty  miles  down  the  line.  And 
a  London  newspaper  correspondent  had  handed  in  a  cable  at 
the  post-office,  and  the  operator's  instrument,  after  a  futile  click 
or  so,  had  failed  to  work  any  more. 

The  telegraphic  wire  was  cut.     Hostilities  had  commenced 

in  earnest,  and  Gueldersdorp,  severed  from  the  South  by  this 

tpening  act  of  war,  must  find  her  salvation  thenceforward  in 

xhe  cool  brain  and  steady  nerves  of  the  handful  of  defenders 

behind  her  sand-bags,  when  the  hour  of  need  should  come. 

History  has  it  written  in  her  imperishable  record,  that  is  not 
only  printed  upon  paper,  and  graved  upon  brass,  and  cut  in 
marble,  but  stamped  into  the  minds  and  hearts  of  millions  of 
men  and  women  of  the  British  race,  how,  when  that  hour 
came,  ihe  hero-spirit  in  their  countrymen  rose  up  to  meet  it. 
And  for  such  undying  memories  as  these,  and  not  for  the  mere 
word  of  suzerainty,  it  is  worth  while  to  have  paid  as  Britain 
has  paid,  in  gold,  and  blood,  and  tears. 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  89 

XIII 

~*  DOP,"  being  the  native  name  for  the  cheapest  and  most 
villainous  of  Cape  brandies,  has  come  to  signify  alcoholic  drinks 
in  general  to  men  of  many  nations  dwelling  under  the  subtropic 
South  African  sun.  Thus,  apple  brandy,  and  peach  liqueur, 
"  Old  Squareface,"  the  colloquial  designation  for  Hollands  gin, 
in  the  squat,  four-sided  bottles  beloved  no  less  of  burgher  and 
Afrikander,  American  and  Briton,  Paddy  from  Cork,  and 
Heinrich  from  the  German  Fatherland,  than  by  John  Chinkey 
— in  default  of  arrack — and  the  swart  and  woolly-headed  de- 
scendant of  Ham. 

It  did  not  matter  what  the  liquor  was,  the  bar-tenders  were 
aware  who  served  the  Dop  Doctor,  as  long  as  the  stuff  scorched 
the  throat  and  stupefied  the  brain,  and  you  got  enough  of  it 
for  your  money. 

His  eyes  were  blood-red  with  brutal  debauch  now,  as  he 
neared  the  one-storied,  soft  brick-built,  corrugated-iron-roofed 
house  on  Harris  Street,  behind  the  Market  Square.  It  had 
been  a  store,  but  green  and  white  paint  and  an  iron  garden- 
fence  had  turned  it  into  a  gentlemanly  residence  for  a  medical 
practitioner.  Mrs.  De  Boursy-Williams,  a  lady  of  refinement, 
stamped  with  the  ineffacable  cachet  of  Bayswater,  had  hung 
cheap  lace  curtains  in  all  the  windows,  tying  them  up  with 
silk  sashes  of  Transvaal  green.  Between  the  wooden  pillars 
of  the  stoep  dangled  curtains  yet  other,  of  chopped,  dyed,  and 
threaded  bamboo,  while  whitewashed  drain-pipes,  packed  with 
earth  and  set  on  end,  overflowed  with  Indian  cress,  flowering 
now  in  extravagant,  gorgeous  hues  of  red  and  brown,  sulphur 
and  orange. 

The  Dop  Doctor,  left  to  maintain  the  inviolate  sanctity  of 
this  English  Colonial  home,  hiccoughed  as  he  stumbled  up  the 
stately  flight  of  three  cement  steps  that  led  between  white- 
pointed  railings,  enclosing  on  the  left  hand  a  narrow  strip  of 
garden  with  some  dusty  mimosa  shrubs  growing  in  it,  to  the 
green  door  that  bore  the  brass  plate,  and  had  the  red  lamp 
fitted  in  the  hall-light  above  ft.  The  plate  bore  this  compre- 
hensive inscription: 

G.  DE  BOURSY-WILLIAMS,  M.D.,  F.R.C.S.  LOND. 

CONSULTING  ROOM  HOURS:  10  A.M.  TO  12  A.M;  6  TO  8  P.M. 

MODERN  DENTISTRY  IN  ALL  ITS  BRANCHES 


90  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

And,  scanning  the  inscription  for  perhaps  the  thousandth 
time,  the  grim,  tender  mouth  under  the  rugged  black  moustache 
took  a  satirical  twist  at  the  corners,  for  nobody  knew  better 
than  Owen  Saxham,  called  of  men  in  Gueldersdorp  the  "  Dop 
Doctor,"  what  a  brazen  lie  it  proclaimed.  He  heard  the  town- 
clock  on  the  stad  square  strike  five  as  he  pulled  out  the  latch- 
key from  his  pocket  and  let  himself  in  shouting: 

"Koets!" 

A  glazed  door  at  the  end  of  the  passage,  advertised  in  let- 
ters of  black  paint  upon  the  ground-glass  as  "  Dispensary," 
opened,  and  a  long,  thin  Dutchman,  dressed  in  respectable 
black,  looked  out.  He  had  been  hoping  that  the  drunken 
Englishman  had  been  shot  or  stabbed  in  a  saloon-brawl,  or  had 
fallen  down  in  apoplexy  in  a  drunken  bout,  and  had  been 
brought  home  dead  on  a  shutter  at  last.  His  long  ginger- 
coloured  face  showed  his  cruel  disappointment.  But  he  said, 
as  though  the  question  had  been  asked: 

"  No,  there  is  no  telegram  from  Cape  Town." 

Then  he  shut  the  glazed  door,  and  returned  to  the  very 
congenial  occupation  in  which  he  had  been  engaged,  and  Owen 
Saxham  went  heavily  to  the  bedroom  placed  at  the  disposal  of 
the  locum  tenens.  The  single  window  looked  out  upon  a  square 
garden  with  a  tennis-ground,  where  the  De  Boursy-Williams 
girls  had  been  used  to  play.  The  vine  on  the  south  wall  was 
heavy  with  golden  ripening  bunches,  an  abandoned  household 
cat  slept,  unconscious  of  impending  starvation,  upon  a  bench 
under  a  tree. 

It  was  a  small,  sordid,  shabby  chamber,  with  a  fly-spotted 
paper,  a  chest  of  drawers  lacking  knobs,  a  greenish  swing  look- 
ing-glass, and  a  narrow  iron  bedstead.  His  scanty  belongings 
were  scattered  about.  There  were  no  medical  books  or  sur- 
gical instruments.  The  Dop  Doctor  had  sold  all  the  tools  of 
his  trade  years  before.  He  turned  to  Williams's  books,  stand- 
ard works  which  had  been  bought  at  his  recommendation,  when 
he  wished  to  refresh  his  excellent  memory;  the  instruments  he 
used  when  to  the  entreaties  of  a  fatherly  friend  Williams  added 
the  alluring  chink  of  gold  belonged  also  to  that  generous  patron. 
There  were  some  old  clothes  in  the  ramshackle  deal  wardrobe ; 
there  was  some  linen  and*  underclothing  in  the  knobless  chest 
of  drawers.  With  the  exception  of  a  Winchester  repeating- 
rifle  in  excellent  condition,  a  bandolier  and  ammunition-pouch, 
a  hunting-knife  and  a  Colt's  revolver  of  large  calibre,  in  ad- 
dition to  the  weapon  he  carried,  there  was  not  an  article  of 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  91 

property  of  any  value  in  the  room.  Old  riding-boots  with 
dusty  spurs  and  a  pair  of  veldschoen  stood  by  the  wall;  a 
pair  of  trodden-down  carpet  slippers  lay  beside  a  big  cheap  zinc 
bath  that  stood  there,  full  of  cold  water;  some  well-used  pipes 
were  on  the  chest  of  drawers,  with  a  tin  of  Virginia;  and  an 
old  brown  camel's-hair  dressing-gown  hung  over  a  castorless, 
shabby,  American-cloth-covered  armchair.  And  a  full  bottle  of 
whisky  stood  upon  the  washstand,  melancholy  witness  to  the 
drunkard's  passion. 

Yet  there  were  a  few  poor  little  toilet  articles  upon  the  dress- 
ing-table that  betokened  the  dainty  personal  habits  of  cleanli- 
ness and  care  that  from  lifelong  use  become  instinctive.  The 
hands  of  the  untidy,  slovenly,  big  man  with  the  drink-swollen 
features  were  exquisitely  kept;  and  when  the  dark-red  colour 
should  go  out  of  the  square  face,  the  skin  would  show  wonder- 
fully unblemished  and  healthy  for  a  drunkard,  and  the  blue 
eyes  would  be  steady  r.nd  clear.  Excess  had  not  injured  a  splen- 
did constitution  as  yet.  But  Saxham  knew  that  by-and-by  .  .  . 

What  did  he  care?  He  pulled  off  his  soiled,  untidy  gar- 
ments, and  soused  his  aching  head  in  the  cold,  fresh  water, 
and  bathed  and  changed.  Six  o'clock  struck,  and  found  Dr. 
Owen  Saxham  reclothed  and  in  his  right  mind,  if  a  little  hag- 
gard about  the  eyes  and  twitchy  about  the  mouth,  and  sitting 
calmly  waiting  for  patients  in  the  study  opening  out  of  the 
consulting-room  of  De  Boursy-Williams,  M.D.,  F.R.S.  Lond. 

Usually  he  sat  in  the  study,  near  enough  to  the  carefully- 
curtained  door  to  hear  the  patient  describe  in  the  witless  ver- 
nacular of  the  ignorant,  or  the  more  cultivated  phraseology 
of  the  educated,  the  symptoms,  his  or  hers. 

Because  the  cultured  man  of  science,  the  real  M.D.  of  Lon- 
don University  and  owner  of  those  other  letters  of  attainment, 
was  the  drunken  wastrel  who  had  sunk  low  enough  to  serve  as 
the  impostor's  ghost.  If  G.  De  Boursy-Williams,  of  all  those 
lying  letters,  were  a  member  of  the  London  Pharmaceutical 
Society  and  properly-qualified  dentist,  which  perhaps  might  be 
the  case,  he  certainly  possessed  no  other  claims  upon  the  con- 
fidence of  his  fellow-creatures,  sick  or  well.  Yet  even  before 
the  Dop  Doctor  brought  his  great  unhealed  sorrow  and  his 
quenchless  thirst  to  Gueldersdorp,  the  smug,  plump,  grey- 
haired  pink-faced,  neatly-dressed  little  humbug  possessed  an  en- 
viable practice. 

If  you  got  well,  he  rubbed  his  hands  and  chuckled  over  you ; 
if  you  died,  he  bleated  about  the  Will  of  Providence,  and  his 


92  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

daughters  sent  flowery,  home-made  wreaths  to  place  upon  your 
grave,  and  it  all  went  down,  adding  to  the  python-length  of  the 
bill  for  medical  attendance. 

This  world  is  thick  with  De  Boursy-Williamses,  throwing 
in  bromides  with  a  liberal  hand,  ungrudging  of  strychnine, 
happily  at  home  with  quinine  and  cathartics,  ready  at  a  case 
of  simple  rubeola;  hideously,  secretly,  helplessly  perplexed  be- 
tween the  false  diphtheria  and  the  true;  treating  internal  can- 
cer and  fibrous  tumours  as  digestive  derangements  for  happy, 
profitable  years,  until  the  specialist  comes  by,  and  shatters  with 
a  brief  examination  and  with  half  a  dozen  trenchant  words  the 
comfortable  faith  of  years. 

Three  years  before,  when  the  Dop  Doctor,  coming  up  from 
Kimberley  by  transport-waggon,  had  stumbled  in  upon  Gueld- 
ersdorp,  the  verdict  of  a  specialist  consulted  by  one  of  his  pa- 
tients, much  lacking  in  the  desirable  article  of  faith,  had  given 
De  Boursy-Williams's  self-confidence  a  considerable  shock. 

Does  it  matter  how  De  Boursy,  much  reduced  in  bulk  by  a 
considerable  leakage  of  conceit,  came  across  the  Dop  Doctor? 
In  a  drink  saloon,  in  a  music-hall,  in  a  gaming-house  or  an 
opium-joint,  at  any  other  of  the  places  of  recreation  where,  after 
consulting  and  visiting  hours,  that  exemplary  father  and  seri- 
ous-minded Established  Churchman,  was  to  be  found?  It  is 
enough  that  the  bargain  was  proposed  and  accepted.  Five 
sovereigns  a  week  secured  to  De  Boursy-Williams  the  stored 
and  applied  knowledge,  the  wide  experience,  and  the  unerring 
diagnosis  of  the  rising  young  London  practitioner,  who  had  had 
a  brilliant  career  before  him  when  a  Hand  had  reached  forth 
from  the  clouds  to  topple  down  the  castle  of  his  labours  and 
his  hopes.  For  Owen  Saxham  the  money  would  purchase  for- 
getfulness.  You  can  buy  a  great  deal  of  his  kind  of  forgetful- 
ness  with  five  pounds,  and  drink  was  all  the  Dop  Doctor 
wanted. 

Now,  as  the  red  South  African  sunset  burned  beyond  the 
western  edge  of  the  rise  in  the  horizon,  looking  from  the  ir- 
regular hamlet  town  that  lies  on  the  low  central  hill,  Owen 
Saxham  sat,  as  for  his  miserable  weekly  wage  he  must  sit,  twice 
daily  for  two  hours  at  a  stretch,  enduring  torments  akin  tc  those 
of  the  damned  in  Hell. 

For  these  were  the  hours  when  he  remembered  most  all  that 
he  had  lost. 

Remembrance,  like  the  magic  carpet  of  the  Eastern  story, 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  93 

carried  him  back  to  a  rambling  old  grey  mansion,  clothed  with 
a  great  magnolia  and  many  roses,  standing  m  old-time  gardens, 
and  shrubberies  of  laurel  and  ilex  and  Spanish  chestnut, 
rhododendron,  upon  the  South  Dorset  cliffs,  that  are  vanishing 
so  slowly  yet  so  surely  in  the  maw  of  the  rapacious  sea. 

Boom !  In  the  heart  of  a  still,  foggy  night,  following  a  day 
of  lashing  rain,  and  the  boy  Owen  Saxham,  whom  the  Dop 
Doctor  remembered,  would  wake  upon  his  lavender-scented 
pillow  in  the  low-pitched  room  with  the  heavy  ceiling-beams 
and  the  shallow  diamond-paned  casements,  and  call  out  to 
David,  dreaming  in  the  other  white  bed,  to  plan  an  excursion 
with  the  breaking  of  the  day,  to  see  how  much  more  of  their 
kingdom  had  toppled  over  on  those  wave-smoothed  rock  pave- 
ments far  below,  that  were  studded  with  great  and  little  fossils, 
as  the  schoolroom  suet-pudding  with  the  frequent  raisin. 

More  faces  came.  The  boys'  father,  fair  and  florid,  bluff, 
handsome,  and  kindly,  an  English  country  gentleman  of  simple 
affectionate  nature  and  upright  life.  He  came  in  weather- 
stained  velveteen  and  low-crowned  felt,  with  the  red  setter- 
bitch  at  his  heels,  and  the  old  sporting  Manton  carried  in  the 
crook  of  his  elbow,  where  the  mother  used  to  sew  a  leather 
patch,  always  cut  out  of  the  palm-piece  of  one  of  the  right- 
hand  gloves  that  were  never  worn  out,  never  being  put  on.  A 
dark-eyed,  black-haired  Welsh  mother,  hot-tempered,  keen- 
witted, humorous,  sarcastic,  passionately  devoted  to  her  hus- 
band and  his  boys,  David  and  Owen. 

David  and  Owen.  David  was  the  eldest,  fair  like  the  father, 
destined  for  Harrow,  Sandhurst,  and  the  army.  Owen  had 
dreamed  of  the  Merchant  Service,  until,  having  succeeded  in 
giving  the  Persian  kitten,  overfed  to  repletion  by  an  admiring 
cook,  a  dose  of  castor-oil,  and  being  allowed  to  aid  the  local 
veterinary  in  setting  the  fox-terrier's  broken  leg,  the  revelation 
of  the  hidden  gift  was  vouchsafed  to  this  boy.  How  he  begged 
off  Harrow,  much  to  the  disgust  of  the  Squire,  and  went 
to  Westward  Ho,  faithfully  plodded  the  course  laid  down  by 
the  Council  of  Medical  Education,  became  a  graduate  of  Trin- 
ity Hall,  Cambridge,  and  took  his  degree  brilliantly;  registered 
as  a  student  at  St.  Stephen's  Hospital ;  won  an  Entrance 
Scholarship  in  Science,  and  secured  the  William  Brown  Exhibi- 
tion in  his  second  year.  Thenceforward  the  world  was  an 
oyster,  to  be  opened  with  scalpel  and  with  bistoury  by  Owen 
Saxham. 

Oh,  the  good  days!  the  delectable  years  of  intellectual  de- 


94  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

velopment,  and  arduous  study,  and  high  hope,  and  patient, 
strenuous  endeavour!  The  man  sitting  with  knotted  hands 
and  tense  brain  and  staring  eyes  there  in  the  darkening  room 
groaned  aloud  as  he  looked  back.  Nobody  envied  that  broad- 
shouldered,  lean-flanked,  bright-eyed  young  fellow  his  successes. 
Companions  shared  his  triumphs,  lecturers  and  professors  came 
down  from  their  high  pedestals  of  dignity  to  help  him  on. 
When  he  obtained  his  London  University  diploma  with  honours 
for  a  thesis  of  exceptional  merit,  he  had  already  held  the  post 
of  principal  anaesthetist  at  St.  Stephen's  Hospital  for  a  year. 
Now,  a  vacancy  occurring  upon  the  junior  staff  of  surgeons  to 
the  Hospital's  In-patient  Department,  Owen  Saxham,  M.D., 
was  chosen  to  fill  it.  This  brought  Mildred  very  near. 

For  he  was  very  much  in  love.  The  hot  red  blood  in  his 
veins  had  carried  him  away  sometimes  upon  a  mad  race  for 
pleasure,  but  he  was  clean  of  soul  and  free  from  the  taint  of 
vice,  inherited  or  acquired,  and  the  Briton's  love  of  home  was 
strong  in  him.  And  wedded  love  had  always  seemed  to  him  a 
beautiful  and  gracious  thing,  and  fatherhood  a  glorious  priv- 
ilege. Stern  as  he  seemed,  grave  and  quiet  and  undemon- 
strative as  he  was,  the  youngest  and  shyest  children  did  not 
shrink  from  him.  The  pink  rose-leaf  tongue  peeped  from  be- 
tween the  budding  rows  of  teeth,  and  the  innocent  considering 
eyes  questioned  him  only  a  moment  before  the  smile  came.  To 
be  the  father  of  Mildred's  children  seemed  the  lofty  end  of  all 
desire  that  was  not  mere  worldly  ambition. 

Mildred  was  the  elder  daughter  of  a  country  neighbour  down 
in  Dorsetshire.  She  had  known  Owen  Saxham  from  her 
school-days,  but  never  until  he  took  to  calling  at  the  house  in 
Pont  Street,  to  which  Mildred,  with  her  family — mere  satellites 
revolving  in  the  orbit  of  that  shining  star  of  Love — migrated  in 
the  Season.  She  was  tall,  slight,  and  willowy,  with  a  sweet 
head  that  drooped  a  little,  and  round  brown  eyes  that  were  ex- 
tremely pretty  and  wore  a  perpetual  expression  of  surprise.  She 
was  rather  anaemic,  preferred  croquet  to  lawn-tennis — then  the 
rage — and  kept  a  journal,  after  the  style  of  an  American  model. 
But  the  space  which  Mary  McMullins  cribbed  from  Mary 
McMullins  to  devote  to  a  description  of  the  bathroom  in  which 
the  ablutions  of  her  family  were  performed,  and  a  vivid  word- 
picture  of  their  tooth-brushes  ranged  in  a  row,  and  their  re- 
cently wrung-out  garments  in  the  act  of  taking  the  air  upon  the 
back-garden  clothes-line,  was  all  devoted  to  Mildred  in  Mil- 
dred's journal.  In  it  Owen  found  a  place.  He  was  described 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  95 

as  a  blend  between  "  Rochester "  in  "  Jane  Eyre "  and 
"  Bazarov  "  In  Turgenev's  "  Fathers  and  Children."  In  one 
specially  high-flown  passage  he  was  referred  to  as  a  grim 
granite  rock,  to  which  the  delicate  clematis-like  nature  of  Mil- 
dred, clinging,  was  to  envelop  it  with  leaf  and  blossom.  She 
read  him  the  passage  one  day.  Their  faces  were  very  close  to- 
gether as  they  sat  upon  the  sofa  in  the  pretty  Pont  Street 
drawing-room,  and  his  newly-bought  engagement-ring  gleamed 
on  her  long  white  hand.  .  .  .  The  remembrance  of  that  day 
made  the  Dop  Doctor  laugh  out  harshly  in  the  midst  of  his 
anguish.  So  trivial  and  so  weak  a  thing  had  been  that  love  of 
hers  on  which  he  had  founded  the  castle  of  his  hopes  and 
desires. 

Now  the  rising  young  man  bought  a  practice  with  some 
thousands  advanced  by  his  father  out  of  the  younger  son's 
portion  that  should  be  his  one  day.  It  lay  just  where  Hyde 
Park  merges  into  Paddington.  Here  a  medical  man  may  feel 
the  pulse  of  Dives  for  gold,  and  look  at  the  tongue  of  Lazarus 
for  nothing,  and  supply  medicine  into  the  bargain,  if  he  be  of 
kindly  soul,  and  this  young,  rising  surgeon  and  physician  had 
an  open  hand  and  an  unsuspecting  nature. 

God!  how  much  the  worse  for  him.  The  sweat-drops  ran 
down  into  the  Dop  Doctor's  eyes  as  he  remembered  that. 

He  set  up  his  bachelor  tent  in  Chilworth  Street,  furnishing 
the  rooms  he  meant  to  inhabit  with  a  certain  sober  luxury. 
By-and-by  the  house  could  be  made  pretty,  unless  Mildred 
should  insist  upon  his  moving  to  Wigmore  Street,  or  to  Harley 
Street,  that  Mecca  of  the  ambitious  young  practitioner.  Prob- 
ably Mildred's  people  would  insist  upon  Harley  Street.  They 
were  wealthy;  their  daughter  would  be  quite  an  heiress,  "an- 
other instance  of  Owen's  luck,"  as  David,  long  ago  gazetted 
to  a  crack  Cavalry  regiment,  would  say,  and  Owen  would 
laugh,  and  admit  that,  though  he  would  have  been  glad  enough 
to  take  his  young  fair  love  without  dower  and  plenishing,  it 
was  pleasant  enough  to  know  that  his  wife  would  have  an 
independent  fortune  of  her  own.  It  was  one  of  David's  best 
jokes  that  Owen  was  marrying  Mildred  for  her  money. 
David's  ideas  of  humour  were  crude  and  elemental.  On  the 
other  hand,  his  manners  were  admirable,  and  his  physical  beauty 
perfect  of  its  type,  though  men  and  women  turned  oftenest  to 
look  at  the  younger  brother,  whom  the  women  called  "  plain, 
but  so  interesting,"  and  the  men  "  an  uncommonly  attractive 
sort  of  fellow,  and  as  clever  as  they  make  them."  When  the 


96  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

great  crash  came  Owen  Saxham,  M.D.,  F.R.C.S.,  was  about 
twenty-nine. 

Do  you  care  for  a  description  of  the  man  at  his  prime? 
He  was  probably  five  feet  ten  in  height,  but  his  scholar's 
stoop  robbed  him  of  an  inch  or  more.  The  great  breadth  of 
the  slightly-bowed  shoulders,  the  immense  depth  and  thickness 
of  the  chest,  gave  his  upper  figure  a  false  air  of  clumsiness. 
His  arms  were  long  and  powerful,  terminating  in  strong, 
supple,  white  hands,  the  hands  of  the  skilled  surgical  operator; 
his  thick,  smooth,  opaque,  white  skin  covered  an  admirable 
structure  of  bone,  knit  with  tough  muscles,  clothed  with  health- 
ful flesh.  One  noticed,  seeing  him  walk,  that  his  legs  were 
bent  a  little,  because  he  had  been  accustomed  to  the  saddle  from 
earliest  childhood,  though  he  rode  but  seldom  now,  and  one 
saw  also  that  his  small  muscular  feet  gripped  the  ground  vigor- 
ously, through  the  glove-thin  boots  he  liked  to  wear.  He 
showed  no  tendency  to  dandyism.  His  loosely-cut  suits  of 
fine,  silky  black  cloth  were  invariably  of  the  same  fashion.  In 
abhorring  jewellery,  in  preferring  white  cashmere  shirts,  and 
strictly  limiting  the  amount  of  starch  in  the  thin  linen  cuffs 
and  collars,  perhaps  he  showed  a  tendency  to  faddism.  David 
told  him  that  he  dressed  himself  like  a  septuagenarian  -Profes- 
sor. Mildred  would  have  preferred  dear  Owen  to  pay  a  little 
more  attention  to  style  and  cut,  and  all  that,  though  one  did 
not,  of  course,  expect  a  man  of  science  to  look  like  a  man  of 
fashion.  One  couldn't  have  everything,  at  least,  not  in  this 
world.  .  .  . 

She  said  that  one  day,  standing  beside  the  writing-table  in 
the  Chilworth  Street  study,  with  David's  portrait  in  her  hand. 
It  usually  stood  there,  in  a  silver  frame — a  coloured  photo- 
graph of  a  young  man  of  thirty,  stupid  and  beautiful  as  the 
Praxitelean  Hermes,  resplendent  in  the  gold  and  blue  and 
scarlet  of  a  crack  Dragoon  Regiment.  Owen  stood  upon  the 
hearthrug,  for  once  in  Mildred's  company  and  not  thinking  of 
Mildred.  And  with  tears  rising  in  her  round,  pretty,  foolish 
eyes  the  girl  looked  from  the  face  and  figure  enclosed  within 
the  silver  frame,  to  the  face  and  bust  that  had  for  a  back- 
ground the  high  mantel-mirror  in  its  carved  frame  of  Spanish 
oak. 

There  was  the  square  black  head  bending  forwards — "  pok- 
ing," she  termed  it — upon  the  massive,  bowed  shoulders;  the 
white  face,  square  too,  with  its  short,  blunt,  hooked  nose  and 
grim,  determined  mouth  and  jaws,  showing  the  bluish  grain 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  97 

of  the  strong  beard  and  moustache  that  Owen  kept  closely 
shaven.  The  heavy  forehead,  the  smutty  brows  overshadowing 
eyes  of  clear,  vivid,  startling  Alpine  blue,  the  close  small  ears, 
the  thick  white  throat,  were  very,  very  unattractive  in  Mil- 
dred's eyes — at  least,  in  comparison  with  the  three-volume- 
novel  charms  of  the  grey-eyed,  golden-moustached,  classically- 
featured,  swaggering  young  military  dandy  in  the  coloured 
photograph.  David  had  been  with  his  regiment  in  India  when 
Owen  had  just  seemed  to  be  a  good  deal  attracted  to  Pont 
Street.  He  had  wooed  Mildred  with  dogged  persistency,  and 
won  her  without  perceptible  triumph,  and  Mildred  had  been 
immensely  flattered  at  first  by  the  conquest  of  this  man,  whom 
everybody  said  was  going  to  be  famous,  great,  distinguished 
.  .  .  and  now  .  .  .  the  wedding  day  was  coming  awfully  near. 
And  how  on  earth  was  it  possible  for  a  girl  to  tell  a  man  with 
Owen's  dreadfully  grim,  sarcastic  mouth,  and  those  terrible 
blue  eyes  that  sometimes  looked  through  and  through  you — 
that  she  liked  his  brother  best? 

Poor,  .dear,  beautiful,  devoted  David!  so  honourable,  so 
shocked  at  the  discovery  that  his  passion  was  reciprocated,  so 
very  romantically  in  love.  Only  the  day  previously,  calling 
in  at  Pont  Street  at  an  hour  unusual  for  him,  Owen  had  found 
them  together,  Mildred  and  David,  who,  having  been  unex- 
pectedly relieved  of  duty  by  an  accommodating  brother-officer, 
had,  as  he  rather  laboriously  explained,  run  up  from  Spurham- 
bury  for  the  day.  It  was  an  awfully  near  thing,  the  guilty 
ones  agreed  afterwards,  but  Owen  had  suspected  nothing. 
These  swell  scientific  men  were*  of  ten  a  little  bit  slow  in  the 
uptake.  .  .  . 

But  to-day — to-day  their  dupe  saw  clearly.  He  recalled  the 
Pont  Street  incident,  and  the  flushed  faces  of  the  couple.  He 
saw  once  more  the  silver-framed  photograph  in  the  girl's  hand, 
he  felt  the  mute  disparagement  of  her  glance,  and  was  con- 
scious of  the  relief  with  which  it  left  him  to  settle  on  the 
portrait  again.  Ah,  how  unsuspicious  he  had  been  whom  they 
were  duping!  Doubtless  Mildred  would  not  have  had  the 
courage  to  own  the  truth,  doubtless  she  would  have  married 
him  but  for  the  scandal  of  the  Trial.  He  wrenched  his 
knitted  hands  together  until  the  joints  cracked.  She  would 
have  married  him,  and  forgotten  David.  He,  the  man  of  will, 
and  power,  and  patience  would  have  possessed  her,  stamped 
himself  like  a  seal  upon  her  heart  and  mind,  given  her  other 
interests,  other  hopes,  other  desires,  children,  and  happiness. 


98  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

But  for  the  Trial  the  little  germinating  seed  of  treachery  would 
never  have  grown  up  and  borne  fruit. 

Had  it  been  treachery,  after  all?  Far,  far  too  grand  the 
word.  Who  would  expect  a  modern  woman  to  practise  the 
obsolete  virtue  of  Fidelity?  Fool,  do  you  expect  your  minia- 
ture French  bulldog  or  your  toy-terrier  to  dive  in  and  swim 
out  to  you,  and  hold  your  drowning  carcass  up,  should  you 
happen  to  become  cramped  while  "bathing  in  the  sea"?  The 
little,  feeble,  pretty,  feather-brained  thing,  what  can  it  do  but 
whimper  on  the  shore  while  you  are  sinking,  perhaps  be  con- 
soled upon  a  friendly  stranger's  lap  while  your  last  bubbles 
are  taking  upward  flight,  and  your  knees  are  drawing  inwards 
in  the  final  contraction?  Happy  for  the  little  creature  if  the 
kindly  stranger  carry  it  away! 

Poor,  pretty,  foolish  Mildred,  whose  gentle  predilections 
were  as  threads  of  gossamer  compared  with  the  cable-ropes  of 
stronger  women's  passions!  She  had  nestled  into  the  strong 
protecting  arm,  and  dried  her  tears  for  the  old  master  on  the 
sleeve  of  the  new  one,  whimpering  a  little,  gently,  just  like 
the  toy-terrier  bitch  or  the  miniature  bull. 

And  yet  he  had  once  seen,  a  creature  tinier  and  feebler  than 
either  of  these,  a  mere  handful  of  yellow  floss-silk  curls,  defend 
its  insensible  master  with  frenzy,  as  the  sick  man  lay  in  the 
deadly  stupor  of  cerebral  congestion,  from  those  who  sought  to 
aid.  Valet  and  nurse  and  doctor  were  held  at  bay  until  that 
snapping,  foaming,  raging  speck  of  love  and  devotion  and 
fidelity  had  been  whelmed  in  a  travelling-rug,  and  borne 
away  to  a  distant  room,  from-whence  its  shrill,  defiant,  implor- 
ing barks  and  yelps  could  be  heard  night  and  day  until,  its 
owner  being  at  last  conscious  and  out  of  danger,  the  tiny  crea- 
ture was  set  free. 

Ergo,  there  are  small  things  and  small  things.  Beside  that 
epic  creature  Mildred  dwindled  inconceivably. 

And  David  .  .  .  David,  who  had  shaken  his  handsome  head 
sorrowfully  over  his  brother's  ruined  career,  who  had  been 
horribly  sick  at  the  scandal,  shudderingly  alive  to  the  disgrace, 
sorrowfully,  regretfully  compelled  to  admit  that  the  evidence 
of  guilt  was  overwhelming  ...  he  did  not  trust  himself  to 
think  of  David  overmuch.  That  way  of  thought  led  to  Cain's 
portion  in  the  very  pit  of  Hell.  For  six  months  subsequently 
to  the  finding  of  the  Jury  in  the  well-known  criminal  case, 
The  Crown  vs-.  Saxham,  David  had  married  Mildred.  If  she 
had  been  innocent  of  actual  treachery,  here  was  the  smooth, 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  99 

brotherly  betrayer,  unmasked  and  loathly  in  the  sight  of  the 
betrayed. 

How  quietly  the  storm-clouds  had  piled  up  on  his  bright 
horizon  at  the  close  of  his  second  year  of  active,  brilliant, 
successful  work! 

The  first  lightning-flash,  the  first  faint  mutter  of  thunder, 
had  passed  almost  unnoticed.  Then  the  tempest  broke,  and 
the  building  wrought  by  a  strong  man's  labours,  and  toils, 
and  hopes,  and  joys,  and  dolours  had  been  lifted,  and  torn,  and 
rent,  and  scattered  as  a  hill  bothy  of  poles  and  straw-bundles 
or  a  moorland  shelter  of  heather  and  bushes  is  scattered  by  the 
fury  of  a  northern  mountain-blast. 

His  practice  had  become  a  large  and,  despite  the  many 
claims  of  Lazarus  at  the  gates,  a  lucrative  one  by  the  com- 
mencement of  his  third  year  of  residence  in  Chilworth  Street. 
It  was  the  end  of  April.  He  was  to  be  married  to  Mildred 
in  June.  That  move  to  Harley  Street  had  been  decided  upon, 
the  house  taken  and  beautified.  Though  his  love  for  her  was 
not  demonstrative  or  hysterical,  it  was  deep,  and  tender,  and 
strong,  and  hopeful,  and  Life  to  this  man  had  seemed  very 
sweet — five  years  ago.  He  was  successful  professionally  and 
socially.  He  had  been  chosen  to  assist  a  surgeon  of  great 
eminence  in  the  removal  of  the  appendix  of  a  semi-Royalty. 
He  had  written,  and  publishers  had  published,  a  remarkable 
work.  "  The  Diseases  of  Civilization  "  had  been  greeted  by 
the  scientific  reviewers  with  a  chorus  of  praise,  passed  through 
four  or  five  editions — had  been  translated  into  several  Euro- 
pean languages ;  and  his  "  Text-Book  of  Clinical  Surgery  "  had 
been  recommended  to  advanced  students  by  the  leading  profes- 
sors of  the  Medical  Schools  when  the  horrible  thing  befell. 

XIV 

IT  was  in  '94,  when  even  the  electro-motor  was  not  in  general 
use,  and  the  petrol-driven  machine  was  slowly  convincing  Paris 
and  New  York  of  its  magnificent  possibilities.  Saxham  used  a 
smart,  well-horsed,  hired  brougham  for  day-visits,  and  for 
night  work  a  motor-tricycle.  There  were  no  stables  to  the 
house  in  Chilworth  Street.  He  left  the  motor-tricycle  at  the 
place  where  he  had  bought  it  second-hand.  The  machine  was 
cleaned  and  kept  in  order,  and  brought  to  his  door  by  one  of 
the  employes  at  a  certain  hour,  for  a  fixed  weekly  sum  paid 
to  the  proprietor  of  the  establishment,  Bough  by  name,  an  Eng- 


ioo  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

lishman  born  in  the  Transvaal,  who  had  quite  recently,  or  so  he 
said,  emigrated  from  South  Africa,  and  set  up  in  London  as  a 
cycle-seller  and  repairer,  though  there  were  not  many  cycles 
at  the  shop.  Heavy  packing-cases  and  crates  were  always  be- 
ing delivered  there,  and  always  being  despatched  from  thence, 
via  Cape  Town  and  Port  Elizabeth  and  Delagoa  Bay  to  the 
Transvaal,  Bough  being  agent,  or  so  he  said,  for  several  South 
African  firms  engaged  in  the  transport  of  agricultural  machines. 
Bough  had  a  wife,  a  large-eyed,  delicate-looking,  pretty  woman, 
who  seemed  afraid  of  the  big,  muscular,  tanned  fellow  of  thirty- 
five  or  so,  with  the  odd  light  eyes,  and  the  smooth  manner,  and 
the  ready  smile,  and  the  deft,  expert,  supple,  cruel-looking 
hands.  He  had  seen  life,  had  Bough,  at  the  gold-fields  and  at 
the  diamond-mines,  and  as  a  trooper  through  the  Zulu  and 
Matabele  campaigns,  and  he  was  ready  to  talk  about  what  he 
had  seen.  Still  there  were  reservations  about  Bough,  and 
mysteries.  The  Doctor  suspected  him  of  being  brutal  to  his 
wife,  and  would  not  have  been  surprised  any  morning  upon 
receiving  the  news  of  the  man's  arrest  as  one  of  a  gang  of 
forgers,  or  coiners,  or  burglars.  But  he  lived  and  let  live,  and 
whatever  else  the  big  Afrikander  may  have  been,  he  was  an 
excellent  workman  at  his  trade. 

One  evening  Bough  rode  round  on  the  motor-tricycle  himself, 
and  mentioned  casually  that  his  wife  was  ailing.  The  Doctor, 
in  the  act  of  mounting  the  machine,  put  a  brief  question  or 
two,  registered  the  replies  in  the  automatic  submemory  he  kept 
for  business,  and  told  the  man  to  send  her  round  at  ten  o'clock 
upon  the  following  morning. 

She  came,  punctual  to  the  hour,  and  was  shown  into  Owen's 
consulting-room — a  little  woman  with  beautiful,  melancholy 
eyes  and  a  pretty  figure.  Illiterate,  common,  affected,  and 
vain  to  a  degree,  hideously  misusing  the  English  language  in 
that  low,  dulcet  voice  of  hers,  ludicrously  fantastic  in  her  use 
and  application  of  the  debatable  aspirate  to  words  in  the  spell- 
ing of  which  it  has  no  part.  Absurd  and  somehow  tragic  too. 

Quite  tragic  by  the  time  she  had  made  plain  her  errand. 

He  heard  her  tell  the  tale  that  was  not  new  to  him.  Cul- 
tured, highly-bred  women  had  made  such  appeals  to  him  before, 
and  without  shame.  How  should  this  little  vulgar  creature  be 
expected  to  have  more  conscience  than  they? 

They  beat  about  the  bush  longer,  they  put  the  thing  more 
prettily.  They  spoke  of  their  frail  physical  health  and  theif 
husband's  great  anxiety,  and  quoted  the  long-ago  expressed 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  101 

opinion  of  ancient  family  physicians,  who  possibly  turned  in 
their  decent  graves  uneasily.  But  the  gist  of  the  whole  wasf 
that  they  did  not  want  children,  and  Dr.  Saxham  had  such  a 
great  and  justly-earned  reputation  in  skilful  and  delicate  opera- 
tions .  .  .  and,  in  short,  would  he  not  be  compliant  and  oblige? 
They  would  pay  anything.  Money  was  positively  no  object. 

How  many  such  tempting  sirens  sing  in  the  ears  of  young, 
rising  professional  men,  who  are  hampered  by  honourable  debts 
which  threaten  to  impede  and  drag  them  down;  who  are 
possessed  of  high  ideals  and  moral  scruples,  which,  not  being 
essentially,  fundamentally  embedded  and  ingrained  in  the  con- 
science of  the  man,  may  possibly  be  argued  away;  who  have  not 
cherished  in  their  souls  and  hearts  the  high  reverence  for 
womanhood  and  the  deep  tenderness  for  helpless  infancy  that 
distinguished  Owen  Saxham! 

He  heard  this  woman  out,  as  he  had  heard  all  the  others. 
He  began  as  he  had  begun  with  every  one  of  them — the  deli- 
cate, titled  aristocrats,  the  ambitious  Society  beauties,  the 
popular  actresses,  the  women  who  envied  these  and  read  about 
them  in  the  illustrated  interviews  published  in  the  fashion 
papers,  and  sighed  to  be  interviewed  also — to  not  one  of  these 
had  he  weighed  out  one  drachm  less  of  the  bitter  salutary 
medicine  that  he  now  administered  to  Mrs.  Bough. 

He  invariably  began  with  the  personal  peril  and  the  in- 
evitable risk.  Strange  how  they  ignored  it,  blinded  themselves 
to  it,  thrust  it,  the  grinning,  threatening  Death's-head,  on  one 
side.  Of  course,  he  talked  like  that!  It  was  most  candid  of 
him,  and  most  conscientious.  But  if  they  were  willing  to 
take  the  risk — and  antiseptic  surgery  had  made  such  huge 
strides  in  these  days  that  the  risk  was  a  mere  nothing.  .  .  . 
Besides,  there  was  not  really  need  for  anything  like  an  opera- 
tion, was  there?  He  could  prescribe  the  kind  of  dose  that 
ought  to  be  taken,  and  everything  would  then  be  all  right. 

He  would  open  that  grim  mouth  of  his  yet  again,  and  speak 
even  more  to  the  purpose.  To  these  mothers  wrho  did  not 
\vish  to  be  mothers,  who  threw  the  gift  of  Heaven  back  in  the 
face  of  Heaven,  preferring  artificial  barrenness  to  natural 
fecundity,  and  who  made  of  their  bodies,  that  should  have 
brought  forth  healthy,  wholesome  sons  and  daughters  of  their 
race,  tombs  and  sepulchres — to  these  he  told  the  truth,  in  swift, 
sharp,  trenchant  sentences,  that,  like  the  keen  sterilized  blade 
of  the  surgical  knife,  cut  to  heal.  When  they  argued  with  him, 
saying  that  the  thing  was  done,  that  everybody  knew  it  was 


102  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

done,  and  that  it  always  would  be  done,  by  other  men  as 
brilliant  as,  and  less  scrupulous  than,  the  homilist,  he  admitted 
the  force  of  their  arguments.  Let  other  men  of  his  great  call- 
ing pile  up  and  amass  wealth,  if  they  chose,  by  tampering  with 
the  unclean  thing.  Owen  Saxham  would  none  of  it.  At  this 
juncture  the  woman  would  have  hysterics  of  the  weeping  or 
the  scolding  kind,  or  would  be  convinced  of  the  righteousness 
of  the  forlorn  cause  he  championed,  or  would  pretend  the 
hysterics  and  the  convictions.  Generally  she  pretended  to  the 
latter,  and  swam  or  stumbled  out,  pulling  down  her  veil  to 
mask  the  rage  and  hatred  in  her  haggard  eyes,  and  went  to  that 
other  man.  Then,  after  a  brief  absence  accounted  for  as  a 
"  rest  cure,"  she  would  shine  forth  again  upon  her  world,  smil- 
ing, triumphant,  prettier  than  ever,  since  she  had  begun  to 
make  up  a  little  more.  Or,  as  a  woman  who  had  passed 
through  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow,  with  only  her  own  rod  and 
staff  of  vanity  and  pride  to  comfort  her,  she  would  emerge 
from  that  seclusion  a  nervous  wreck,  and  take  to  pegging  or 
chloral  or  spiritualism.  Most  rarely  she  would  not  emerge 
at  all,  and  then  her  women  friends  would  send  wreaths  for 
the  coffin  and  carriages  to  the  funeral,  and  would  whisper 
mysteriously  together  in  their  boudoirs,  and  look  askance  upon 
the  doctor  who  had  attended  her.  For  of  course  he  had 
bungled  shockingly,  or  everything  would  have  gone  off  as  right 
as  rain  for  that  poor  dear  thing! 

Little  Mrs.  Bough  was  of  the  type  of  woman  that  pre- 
tended to  be  convinced.  She  had  cried  bitterly  in  the  begin- 
ning, as  she  confessed  to  him  that  she  was  not  really  married 
to  Bough,  and  that  the  said  Bough,  whom  Saxham  had  always 
suspected  of  being  a  scoundrel,  would  certainly  go  off  with 
"  one  of  them  other  women  and  leave  her  if  she  went  and  'ad 
a  byby."  She  cried  even  more  bitterly  afterwards,  as  she 
wondered  how  she  ever  could  'a  dreamed  o'  being  that  wicked ! 
Bough  might  kill  her — that  he  might! — or  go  back  to  South 
Africa  without  her;  she  never  would  give  in,  not  now.  Never 
now — the  Doctor  might  depend  upon  that,  she  assured  him, 
drying  her  swollen  eyes  with  a  cheap  lace-edged  handkerchief 
loaded  with  patchouli.  She  was  shaken  and  nervous,  and  in 
need  of  a  sedative,  and  Saxham,  having  the  drugs  at  hand, 
made  her  up  a  simple  draught,  omitting  to  make  a  memorandum 
of  the  prescription  in  his  pocket-book,  and  gave  her  the  first 
dose  of  it  before  she  went  away,  profuse  in  thanks,  and  carrying 
the  bottle. 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  103 

And  he  saw  his  waiting  patients,  and  stepped  into  his  wait- 
ing brougham,  and,  having  for  once  no  urgent  call  upon  his 
professional  attention,  dined  with  Mildred  at  Pont  Street,  and 
was  coaxed  into  promising  to  take  her  to  the  first  performance 
of  a  new  play  which  was  to  be  produced  three  nights  later  at  a 
fashionable  West  End  theatre.  Mildred  had  set  her  heart 
upon  being  seen  in  a  box  at  this  particular  function,  and  Sax- 
ham  had  had  some  trouble  to  gratify  her  wish. 

He  remembered  with  startling  clearness  every  remote  detail 
of  that  night  at  the  theatre.  Mildred  had  looked  exquisitely 
fair  and  girlish  in  her  white  dress,  with  a  necklace  of  pearls  he 
had  given  her,  rising  and  falling  on  the  lovely  virginal  bosom, 
wThere  the  lover's  eyes  dwelt  and  lingered  in  the  masterful 
hunger  of  his  heart.  Soon,  soon,  that  hunger  of  his  for  pos- 
session would  be  gratified!  It  was  May,  and  at  the  end  of 
July,  when  work  was  growing  slack,  they  would  be  married. 
They  were  going  North  for  the  honeymoon.  A  wealthy  and 
grateful  patient  of  Saxham's  had  placed  at  his  disposal  a  grey, 
historic  Scotch  turret-mansion,  standing  upon  mossy  lawns,  with 
woods  of  larch  and  birch  and  ancient  Spanish  chestnuts  all  about 
it,  looking  over  the  silver  Tweed.  In  the  heat  and  hurry  of 
his  daily  round  of  work,  Saxham,  who  had  spent  an  autumn 
holiday  at  this  place,  would  find  himself  dreaming  about  it. 
The  smell  of  the  heather  would  spice  the  air  that  was  no 
longer  hot  and  sickly  with  the  foetor  of  the  city,  and  the  hum 
of  the  drowsy  black  bees,  and  the  cooing  of  the  wood-pigeons 
would  replace  the  din  of  the  London  traffic,  and  Mildred's 
eyes  would  be  looking  into  his,  and  her  cool,  fragrant  lips 
would  be  all  his  at  last,  and  her  arms  would  be  about  his  neck, 
and  all  those  secret  aspirations  and  yearnings  and  dreams  of 
wedded  joy  would  be  realized  at  last. 

He  grinned  to  himself  sitting  there  in  the  hot  darkness  of 
the  South  African  night,  the  great  white  stars  and  the  vast 
purple  dome  they  throbbed  in  shut  out  of  sight  by  the  miserable 
little  gaily-papered  ceiling  with  its  cornice  of  gilt  wood,  re- 
membering that  everything  had  ended  that  night.  Thenceforth 
no  more  hopes,  no  dreams,  for  the  man  whom  Fate  and  Destiny* 
hitherto  propitious  and  obliging,  had  conspired  to  lash  with 
scourges,  and  drive  with  goads,  and  hound  with  despairs  and 
horrors  to  the  sheer  brink  where  Madness  waits  to  hurl  the 
desperate  over  upon  the  jagged  rocks  below. 

He  supped  with  them  at  Pont  Street.  Mildred  came  down 
to  say  good-night  at  the  door._ 


104  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

"  Have  you  been  happy?"  he  had  asked,  framing  the  sweet 
.young  face  in  tender  hands,  and  looking  in  the  grey-blue  gentle 
eyes. 

"  You  have  been  so  very  dear  and  kind  to-night,"  she  had 
answered,  "  how  could  I  have  helped  being  happy?  And  He  " 
— she  meant  the  Semitic  actor-manager,  whom  she  romantically 
adored;  whose  thick,  flabby  features  and  pale  gooseberry  orbs, 
thickly  outlined  in  blue  pencil,  eye-browed  with  brown  grease- 
paint; whose  long,  shapeless  body,  eloquent,  expressive  hands, 
and  legs  that  were  very  good  as  legs  go,  taking  them  separately, 
but  did  not  match,  had  been  that  night,  his  admirers  declared, 
moved  and  possessed  by  the  very  spirit  of  Shakespearean 
Tragedy — "  He  was  so  great !  Don't  you  agree  with  me — 
marvellously  great  ?  " 

Saxham  had  laughed  and  kissed  the  enthusiast.  It  had  ap- 
peared to  him  a  dreary  performance  enough,  or  it  would  have, 
had  it  not  been  for  Mildred  and  the  dear  glamour  with  which 
her  presence  had  invested  the  great  gilded  theatre,  with  its 
rows  of  bored,  familiar,  notable  faces  in  the  stalls,  representing 
Society,  Art,  Literature,  Music,  and  Finance,  its  pit  and  gallery 
crowded  with  organized  bodies  of  blackmailers,  one  party 
bound  to  boo  where  the  other  applauded,  riot  and  disorder  the 
inevitable  result,  unless  both  had  been  sweetened,  by  the  tactful 
pre-administration  of  cheques  of  corresponding  value,  to  dis- 
play a  unanimity  of  approval,  upon  which  the  dramatic  press 
critics  would  rapturously  descant  in  the  newspapers  next  morn- 
ing. 

XV 

SAXHAM  said  his  lingering  sweet  good-night,  and  shut  Mildred 
into  the  warm,  lighted  hall,  and  ran  down  the  steps,  and 
hailed  a  passing  hansom,  and  was  driven  back  to  Chilworth 
Street.  It  had  rained,  and  the  heat,  excessive  for  May,  had 
abated,  and  the  wise,  experienced  stars  looked  down  between 
drifting  veils  of  greyish  vapour  upon  the  little  human  lives 
passing  below. 

As  he  jumped  down  at  his  door  and  paid  his  cabman,  his 
quick  eye  noticed  a  bicycle  leaning  against  the  area-railings. 
One  of  his  poorer  patients  was  waiting  for  the  Doctor.  Or 
a  messenger  had  been  sent  to  summon  him.  He  let  himself 
into  the  lighted  hall,  whistling  the  pretty  plaintive  melody  of 
Ophelia's  song. 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  105 

A  woman  sat  on  the  oak  bench  under  the  electric  globe, 
her  little  huddled-up  figure  making  rather  a  sordid  blotch  of 
drab  against  the  strong,  rich  background  of  the  wall,  coloured 
Pompeian  red,  and  hung  with  fine  old  prints  in  black  frames. 
Her  tawdry  hat  lay  beside  her,  her  haggard  eyes  were  set,  star- 
ing at  the  opposite  wall;  her  lower  jaw  hung  lax;  the  saliva 
dribbled  from  the  corner  of  her  underlip;  her  yellow,  rigid 
hands  gripped  the  edge  of  the  bench.  It  was  the  woman  who 
passed  as  the  wife  of  the  man  Bough.  And  in  instant,  vivid, 
wrathful  realization  of  the  desperate  reason  of  her  being  there, 
Saxham  cried  out  so  loudly  that  the  servant  who  had  let  her  in 
and  was  waiting  up  for  his  master  in  the  basement  heard  the- 
words: 

"Are  you  mad?  What  do  you  mean  by  coming  here?  I 
have  told  you  that  I  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  you  and  your 
affairs.  .  .  ." 

The  voice  that  issued  from  her  blue  lips  might  have  been 
a  scream,  judging  by  the  wrung  anguish  of  the  awful  face  she 
turned  upon  him;  but  it  was  no  more  than  a  dry,  clicking 
whisper  that  even  he  could  barely  hear: 

"  Don't  be  'ard  on  a  woman  ...  in  trouble,  Doctor." 

"  Hard  on  you.  .  .  .  On  the  contrary,  I  have  been  too 
considerate,"  he  said,  steeling  his  heart  against  pity.  "  You 
must  go  home  to  your  husband,  Mrs.  Bough,  or  apply  elsewhere 
for  medical  advice.  I  have  none  to  give  you." 

His  square  face  was  very  stern  as  he  took  the  cab-whistle- 
from  the  hall-salver,  that  was  packed  with  cards  and  notes,  and 
letters  that  had  come  by  the  last  post,  and  a  telegram  or  two. 
She  moaned  as  he  laid  his  hand  on  the  knob  of  the  hall- 
door. 

"  It  wasn't  my  doings,  Doctor.  ...  Hi  told  Bough  what 
you  said.  Hi  did,  faithful  .  .  .  an'  'e  swore  if  you  wasn't 
the  man  to  do  wot  'e  wanted,  Vd  be  damned  but  'e'd  find  a 
woman  as  would.  And  she  come  next  night — a  little,  shabby, 
white-faced,  rat-nosed  old  thing,  shiverin'  an'  shakin'.  Five 
pounds  she  'ad  of  Bough,  shakin'  an'  shiverin'.  An'  he  wasn't 
to  send  no  more  to  the  address  he  knew,  because  she  wouldn't 
be  there.  Always  move  out  .  .  .  she  says,  after  a  fresh  job! 
Oh,  my  Gawd !  An'  Bough,  he  ordered  me,  an'  Hi  'ad  to  give 
in.  An'  to-night  Hi  reckoned  Hi  was  dyin'  an'  e'  said  Hi 
best  arsk  you,  'e  was  about  fed  up  with  women  an'  their  bloom- 
ing sicknesses.  So  Hi  hiked  'ere  because  Hi  couldn't  walk. 
An'  now!  .  .  ."  She  groaned: "Hi  ham  dyin',  aren't  Hi?" 


io6  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

Even  to  an  observation  less  skilled  than  that  of  the  expert 
medical  practitioner  the  signs  of  swift  and  speedy  dissolution 
were  written  on  the  insignificant,  once  pretty,  little  face. 
Dying,  the  miserable  little  creature  had  ridden  to  Chilworth 
Street,  hastening  her  own  inevitable  end  by  the  stupendous  act 
of  folly,  and  ensuring  his.  That  certainty  had  pierced  him, 
even  as  the  first  horrible  convulsion  seized  her  and  wrenched 
her  sideways  off  the  bench.  He  caught  her,  and  shouted  for 
his  man,  and  they  carried  her  into  the  consulting-room,  and  laid 
her  on  a  sofa,  and  he  did  what  might  be  done,  knowing  that 
his  mercy  on  her  involved  swift  and  pitiless  retribution  upon 
himself.  Mrs.  Bough  died  three  hours  later,  as  the  grey  dawn 
straggled  through  the  blinds,  and  the  men  with  the  district 
ambulance  waited  at  the  door,  and  Dr.  Owen  Saxham  went 
about  his  work  that  day  with  a  strange  sensation  of  expecting 
some  heavy  blow  that  was  about  to  fall.  It  fell  upon  the 
day  following  the  Coroner's  Inquest.  He  was  sitting  down 
to  breakfast  when  a  Superintendent  of  Police  arrested  him  upon 
a  warrant  from  Scotland  Yard. 

His  servant,  very  pale,  had  announced  that  the  Superin- 
tendent wished  to  see  the  Doctor.  The  Superintendent  was  in 
the  room,  courteously  saluting  Saxham,  before  the  man  had 
fairly  got  out  the  words. 

"  Good-morning,  sir.     A  pleasant  day." 

"  Unlike  the  business  that  brings  you  here,  I  think,  Mr. 
Superintendent,"  said  Saxham,  with  his  square  jaw  set.  His 
man  spilt  the  coffee  and  hot  milk  over  the  cloth  in  trying  to 
fill  his  master's  cup.  "  You  are  nervous,  Tait.  You  had 
better  go  downstairs,  I  think,  unless "  Saxham  looked  in- 
terrogatively at  the  burly,  officially-clad  figure  of  the  Law. 

"  No,  sir,  thank  you.  We  do  not  at  present  require  your 
man,  but  it  is  my  duty  to  tell  him  that  he  had  better  not  be  out 
of  the  way,  in  case  his  testimony  is  wanted." 

"You  hear?"  said  Saxham;  and  as  white-faced  Tait  fled, 
trembling,  to  the  lower  regions:  "Of  course,  you  are  here," 
he  went  on,  pouring  out  the  coffee  himself  with  a  firm  hand, 
and  looking  steadily  at  the  Superintendent,  "  with  regard  to 
the  case  of  Mrs.  Bough?  I  have  expected  that  a  magistrate's 
inquiry  would  follow  the  Inquest.  It  seemed  only  nat- 
ural  " 

The  Superintendent  interrupted,  holding  up  a  large  hand. 

"  It  is  my  duty  to  tell  you,   Dr.   Saxham,  that  everything 

you  say  will  be  taken  down  and  used  against  you  in  evidence." 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  107 

"  Naturally,"  said  Saxham,  putting  sugar  in  his  coffee.  The 
sugar  was  used  against  him.  It  amused  him  now  to  remember 
that.  The  Superintendent  had  never  seen  a  gentleman  more 
cool,  he  told  the  magistrate. 

"  You  see,  sir,  this  case  has  been  fully  considered  by  the 
authorities,  and  it  has  an  ugly  look;  and  it  has  therefore  been 
decided  to  charge  you  with  causing  the  death  of  the  woman 
Bough  by  an  illegal  act,  performed  here,  in  your  consulting- 
room,  on  May  the  twentieth,  when  she  visited  you.  .  ." 

"  For  the  first  time,"  put  in  Saxham  quietly. 

"  That  may  be  or  may  not  be,"  said  the  Superintendent. 
"  You  were  often  at  her  husband's  place  of  business,  you  know, 
and  may  have  seen  her  or  not  seen  her." 

"  As  she  used  to  be  in  Bough's  shop,  it  is  possible  that  a  great 
many  of  the  man's  customers  besides  myself  did  see  her," 
Owen  went  on,  eating  his  breakfast. 

"  One  of  my  men  out  there  in  the  hall.  I've  noticed  you 
looking  towards  the  door — — "  began  the  Superintendent. 

"  Wondering  what  the  shuffling  and  breathing  at  the  key- 
hole meant?"  said  Saxham  quietly.  "Thank  you  for  ex- 
plaining." 

"  One  of  my  men  will  fetch  a  cab  when  you  have  finished 
breakfast,  and  then,  sir,"  said  the  Superintendent,  "  I  am  afraid 
I  must  trouble  you  to  come  with  me  to  Paddington  Police 
Station." 

"  Very  well,"  said  Saxham,  frowning,  "  unless  you  object 
to  using  my  brougham,  which  will  be  at  the  door  " — he  looked 
at  his  silver  table-clock,  a  present  from  a  grateful  patient — "  in 
ten  minutes'  time." 

"  I  don't  at  all  object,  sir,"  agreed  the  obliging  Superin- 
tendent; "and  the  men  can  follow  in  the  cab.  Any  objec- 
tion?" 

Saxham  had  winced  and  flushed  scarlet  to  the  hair. 

"  For  God's  sake,  don't  make  a  procession  of  it.  Let  things 
be  kept  as  quiet  as  possible  for  the  sake  of  my — family — and 
— my  friends."  He  thought  with  agony  of  Mildred.  They 
were  to  be  married  in  June,  unless 

The  Superintendent  coughed  behind  his  glove.  "The 
question  of  bail  will  rest  with  the  magistrate,  of  course,"  he 
said.  "  But  I  should  expect  that  it  would  be  admitted, 
upon  responsible  persons  entering  into  the  customary  recogniz- 
ances." 

Saxham  rose.     He  had  drunk  the  coffee,  but  he  could  not 


io8  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

eat.  "  Like  all  the  rest  of  them,  in  spite  of  his  show  of  cool- 
ness," thought  the  Superintendent. 

"  I  will  ask  you  for  time  to  telephone  to  some  friends  who 
will,  I  have  no  doubt,  be  willing  to  give  the  required  under- 
taking, and  arrange  for  a  colleague  to  visit  my  patients.  You 
will  take  a  glass  of  wine  while  I  step  into  the  next  room?  The 
telephone  is  there,  on  the  writing-table." 

"  And  a  loaded  revolver  in  the  drawer  underneath,  and 
poisons  of  all  kinds  handy  on  the  shelves  of  a  neat  little  cab- 
inet," thought  the  Superintendent.  But  he  said:  "With 
pleasure,  sir,  only  I  must  trouble  you  to  put  up  with  my 
company." 

A  tingling  thrill  of  revulsion  ran  through  Saxham.  He 
set  his  teeth,  and  conquered  the  furious,  momentary  impulse 
to  knock  down  this  big,  burly,  smooth-spoken  blue-uniformed 
official. 

"  Ah,  very  well.  The  usual  procedure  in  cases  of  this  kind. 
Please  come  this  way.  But  take  a  glass  of  wine  first.  There 
are  glasses  on  the  sideboard  there,  and  claret  and  port  in  those 
decanters." 

"  To  your  very  good  health,  Dr.  Saxham,  sir,  and  a  speedy 
and  favourable  ending  to — the  present — difficulty."  The 
Superintendent  emptied  a  bumper  neatly,  and  with  discreet 
relish,  and  followed  Saxham  into  the  consulting-room,  and 
once  more,  at  the  sound  of  the  measured  footfall  padding  be- 
hind him  over  the  thick  carpet,  the  suspect's  blood  surged  madly 
to  his  temples,  and  his  hands  clenched  until  the  nails  drove 
deep  into  the  palms.  For  from  that  moment  began  the  long, 
slow  torture  of  watching  and  following,  and  dogging  by  the 
suspicious,  vigilant,  observing  Man  In  Blue. 

A  Treasury  Prosecution  succeeded  the  Police-Court  Inquiry, 
and  the  accused  was  formally  arrested  upon  the  criminal  charge, 
and  committed  to  Holloway  pending  the  Trial.  The  Trial 
took  place  before  Mr.  Justice  Bodmin  in  the  following  July, 
occupying  five  red-hot  dog-days  in  the  thrashing  out  of  that 
vexed  question,  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  Owen  Saxham,  M.D., 
F.R.C.S.  Who  for  airless,  stifling  years  of  weeks  had  eaten 
and  drunk  and  slept  and  waked  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow 
of  Penal  Servitude.  Who  was  conveyed  from  the  dock  to  the 
cell  and  from  the  cell  to  the  dock  by  wardens  and  policemen, 
rumbling  through  back  streets  and  unfrequented  ways  in  a 
prison-van.  Who  came  at  last  to  look  upon  the  Owen  Sax- 
ham  of  this  hideous  prison  nightmare,  the  man  of  whom  the 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  109 

Counsel  for  the  Crown  reared  up,  day  by  day,  a  monstrously- 
distorted  figure,  as  quite  a  different  person  from  the  other 
innocent  man  whom  the  defending  advocate  described  in  flow- 
ery, pathetic  sentences  as  a  martyr  and  the  victim  of  an  un- 
heard-of combination  of  adverse  circumstances. 

Things  went  badly.  The  case  against  the  prisoner  looked 
extremely  black.  That  monstrous  figure  of  Owen  Saxham, 
based  upon  an  ingenious  hypothesis  of  guilt,  and  plastered  over 
with  a  marvellous  mixture  of  truths  and  falsities,  facts  and 
conjectures,  grew  uglier  and  more  sinister  every  day. 

The  principal  witness,  the  bereaved  husband  of  the  hapless 
victim,  dressed  in  deep  mourning  and  neatly  handled  by  Coun- 
sel, evoked  a  display  of  handkerchiefs  upon  his  every  appear- 
ance in  the  wTitness-box,  from  the  smart  Society  women  seated 
near  the  Bench.  Many  of  them  had  been  Saxham's  patients. 
Several  had  made  love  to  him,  nearly  all  of  them  had  made 
much  of  him,  and  quite  an  appreciable  number  of  them  had 
asked  him  to  be  accommodating,  and  render  them  immune 
against  the  menace  of  Maternity.  These  had  received  a  curt 
refusal,  accompanied  with  wholesome  advice,  for  which  they 
revenged  themselves  now,  in  graceful  womanly  fashion,  by  be- 
ing quite  sure  the  wretched  man  was  guilty.  More  than  pos- 
sible, wras  it  not?  they  whispered  behind  their  palm-leaf  fans: 
it  was  hot  weather,  and  the  vendors  of  these  made  little  for- 
tunes, hawking  them  outside.  Was  it  not  more  than  possible 
that  he  had  been  the  dead  woman's  lover  ?  The  Crown  Coun- 
sel improved  on  this  idea.  Wretched  little  Mrs.  Bough,  of  in- 
finitesimal account  in  Life,  had  become  through  Death  a  per- 
son of  importance.  Much  was  made  out  of  the  fact  that  she 
had  gone  to  Chilworth  Street  some  days  previously  to  her  de- 
plorable ending,  and  remained  closeted  with  Dr.  Saxham  for 
some  time.  He  had  supplied  her  with  a  bottle  of  medicine 
upon  her  leaving — medicine  of  which  no  memorandum  was  to 
be  found  in  his  notes  for  the  day.  She  had  taken  the  first 
dose  then  and  there.  According  to  the  testimony  of  the  Ac- 
cused, the  bottle  had  contained  a  harmless  bromide  sedative. 
Upon  the  oath  of  the  Public  Analyst,  the  same  bottle,  handed 
by  the  husband  of  the  deceased  woman  to  the  Police  upon  the 
night  of  her  death,  and  now  produced  in  Court  with  two  or 
three  doses  of  dark  liquid  remaining  in  it,  contained  a  powerful 
solution  of  ergotoxine — a  much  less  innocent  drug.  Who 
should  presume  to  doubt  its  administration  by  the  Prisoner, 
when  the  label  bore  directions  in  his  own  characteristic  hand- 


I  io  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

writing?  Who  should  dare  to  affirm  his  innocence,  seeing 
that  to  him  his  victim  had  hastened,  almost  in  the  act  of  death, 
begging  him,  with  her  expiring  breath,  "  not  to  be  hard  on  a 
woman,"  who  had  ignorantly  trusted  him,  Gentlemen  of  the 
Jury!  only  to  find,  too  late,  the  deceptive  nature  of  his  spe- 
cious promises?  A  whip,  cried  the  Bard  of  Avon,  England's 
glorious  immortal  Shakespeare,  should  be  placed  in  every  hon- 
est hand  to  lash  such  scoundrels  naked  through  the  world! 
Let  that  whip,  in  the  honest  hands  of  twelve  good  Britons,  be 
— the  verdict  of  guilt!  The  Counsel  for  the  Crown,  red-hot 
and  perspiring,  sat  down  mopping  his  streaming  face,  for  it  was 
now  mid-June,  with  the  white  handkerchief  of  a  blameless  life. 
Irrepressible  applause  followed,  round  upon  round  thudding 
against  the  dingy  yellow-white  walls,  beating  against  the  dirty 
barred  skylight  of  the  stifling,  close-packed  Court.  Then  the 
Judge  interposed,  and  the  clapping  of  hands  and  thumping  of 
stick  and  sunshade  ferrules  upon  the  dirty  floor  died  down,  and 
the  Counsel  for  the  Defence  got  up  to  plead  for  his  man,  who, 
by  the  way,  he  firmly  believed  to  be  guilty. 

That  remembrance  made  the  Dop  Doctor  merry  again,  this 
scorching  night  in  Gueldersdorp,  five  years  later.  But  it  was 
ugly  mirth,  especially  when  he  recalled  his  agony  of  sympathy 
upon  hearing,  through  her  mother,  that  Mildred  was  ill  in  bed. 
Christ!  how  he  hated  the  simpering,  whispering,  sneering,  gig- 
gling women  in  Court  when  he  pictured  her,  his  innocent 
darling,  his  sweet  girl,  suffering  for  love  of  him  and  sorrow 
for  him.  David,  detained  by  onerous  duties  at  Regimental 
Headquarters  throughout  the  whole  of  the  Case,  wrote  chilly 
but  fraternally  expressed  letters  on  blue  official  paper.  Of  his 
mother,  oi  his  father,  he  dared  not  think.  Innocent  as  he  was, 
the  shame  of  his  position,  the  obloquy  of  the  Trial,  must  be  a 
branding  shame  to  them  for  ever. 

It  had  killed  them,  the  Dop  Doctor  remembered,  within  a 
few  years  of  each  other — the  hale  old  Squire  and  Madam,  his 
Welsh  wife,  feared  by  the  South  Dorset  village  folks  for  her 
caustic  tongue,  beloved  for  her  generous  heart,  her  liberal 
nature.  It  was  Mildred  who  he  had  believed  would  die  if  the 
Verdict  went  against  him — Mildred,  who  had  consoled  herself 
so  quickly  and  so  well — Mildred,  whom  he  had  held  a  spotless 
lily  of  Paradise,  a  young  saint  in  purity  and  singleness  of  heart, 
in  comparison  with  those  other  women. 

Bah!  what  a  besotted  idiot  he  had  been!  She  was  as  they 
were.  The  nodding  of  their  towering  hats  was  before  his 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  in 

eyes;  the  subdued  titter  that  accompanied  their  whispered  com- 
ments was  in  his  ears,  the  lavender,  white  rose,  and  violet 
essences  with  which  they  perfumed  their  baths  and  sprinkled 
their  clothes  were  in  his  nostrils;  suffocatingly,  as  his  Counsel 
went  on  pleading.  The  intention  of  his  trenchant  cross-ques- 
tioning of  Bough,  who  had  lied  from  the  beginning,  like  a  true 
son  of  the  Devil,  his  father,  showed  plainly  now.  Little  by 
little  the  evidence  accumulated. 

Here,  free  and  unsuspected  and  doing  his  best,  to  send  another 
man  to  Penal  Servitude,  was  the  man  who  had  all  to  gain  by 
fixing  the  guilt  upon  the  Accused.  He  had  sent  the  woman, 
his  mistress,  to -the  prisoner;  he  had  resented  the  prisoner's  re- 
fusal to  commit  or  to  abet  a  dangerous  and  illegal  operation. 
He  had  compelled  his  private  victim  to  submit  herself  to  the 
hands  of  a  wretch  wlio  lived  by  such  deeds.  Possibly  he  had 
sickened  of  his  poor  toy — he  had  told  her  as  much.  Possibly 
he  had  determined,  by  a  bold  and  daring  stroke,  to  free  himself 
of  a  wearisome  burden,  and  let  another  man  pay  the  penalty 
for  his  own  crime.  The  substitution  of  the  lethal  drug  found 
in  the  bottle  for  the  harmless  bromide-mixture  given  to  Mrs. 
Bough  by  Dr.  Saxham  would  naturally  suggest  itself  to  such 
a  wretch,  whose  calculating  cleverness  had  been  crowned  with 
success  by  the  culminating  master-stroke,  admirable  in  its 
simplicity,  damnable  in  its  fiendish  cunning,  of  sending  the  un- 
happy woman  whose  deliberate  murder  he  had  really  planned 
and  carried  out,  to  die  upon  the  threshold  of  the  innocent  vic- 
tim of  this  diabolical  plot.  Let  those  who  heard  hesitate  before 
they  played  into  the  hands  of  a  villain  by  condemning  the  blame- 
less to  suffer.  Let  them  look  at  the  young  man  before  them, 
whose  hard  work  had  won  him,  early  in  life,  his  brilliant  posi- 
tion as  one  of  the  recognized  pioneers  of  the  new  School  of 
Surgery,  as  an  admitted  authority  on  Clinic  Medicine,  whose 
wedding-bells — the  handkerchiefs  came  out  at  this — had  rung 
to-morrow  but  for  this  harrowing  and  bitter  stroke  of  adverse 
Destiny.  Which  would  they  have?  Let  the  Jury  decide  for 
Christ  or  Barabbas!  He  spoke  in  all  reverence,  because  the  up- 
right, innocent,  charitable,  self-denying  life  of  a  diligent  healer 
of  men  would  bear  the  analogy  of  Christ-likeness  beside 
that  of  the  principal  witness  in  this  Case,  the  evil  liver,  the 
slanderer,  the  ex-thief  and  burglar,  the  English  ticket-of-leave 
man  who  had  emigrated  to  South  Africa  eighteen  years  previ- 
ously, had  enlisted  under  a  false  name  in  the  Cape  Mounted 
Police,,  had  deserted,  been  traced  to  Kimberley,  and  there  lost 


ii2  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

sight  of,  and  who,  under  the  name  of  Bough,  had  recently  re- 
turned to  England,  giving  himself  out  as  an  Afrikander,  and 
setting  up  in  business  in  London  upon  the  accumulated  savings 
of  a  career  most  probably  in  keeping  with  his  abominable  rec- 
ord. 

Wardens  from  Wormwood  Scrubbs  and  Portland  Prisons 
were  there  to  swear  to  the  identity  of  Abraham  Brake,  alias 
Lister,  alias  Bough,  whose  photographs,  thumb-prints,  and 
measurements  an  official  from  the  Criminal  Identification  De- 
partment of  Scotland  Yard  was  prepared  to  place  before  the 
Court,  for  whose  rearrest,  as  a  ticket-of-leave  man  who  had 
failed  to  keep  in  proper  touch  with  the  Police,  an  officer  with 
a  warrant  waited.  What,  then,  was  to  be  the  Verdict  of  the 
Jury?  Was  Dr.  Owen  Saxham  innocent  or  guilty?  If  in- 
nocent, then,  in  the  name  of  God,  let  him  go  forth  from  bond- 
age, to  the  unutterable  relief  of  those  who  waited  in  anguish 
for  the  Verdict.  His  father,  his  mother,  and  the  fair  young 
girl — the  Court  was  drowned  in  tears  at  this  last  touching 
reference,  even  his  Lordship  the  Judge  being  observed  to  re- 
move and  wipe  eyeglasses  that  were  gemmy  with  emotion,  as 
Counsel  dwelt  upon  the  touching  picture  of  the  sorrowing 
bride-elect,  whose  orange-blossoms  had  been  blighted  by  the 
breath  of  this  hideous,  this  unbearable,  this  most  unfounded 
charge.  .  .  . 

XVI 

THE  Judge  summed  up,  with  an  evident  bias  in  favour  of  the 
Accused.  An  old  advocate  in  criminal  causes,  his  Lordship 
had  formed  his  own  opinion  of  the  principal  witness  for  the 
Crown,  though  there  was  no  evidence  to  prove  the  guilt  of  the 
astute  Mr.  Abraham  Brake,  alias  Lister,  alias  Bough. 

The  Jury  retired,  to  return  immediately.  The  Verdict 
"  Not  Guilty  "  was  received  with  applause  and  cheers.  Bough 
departed,  to  pay  the  prison  penalty  of  not  keeping  in  touch  with 
the  Police.  .  .  .  More  cheers,  strongly  deprecated  by  the 
Judge.  The  Dop  Doctor  could  hear  that  ironical  clapping 
and  braying  five  years  off.  It  was  over,  over!  He  was  free! 
Oh,  the  mockery  of  the  word! 

His  Counsel  shook  his  hand  warmly,  and  several  old  friends 
and  colleagues  pressed  round  him  with  hearty  congratulations. 
Then  a  telegram  was  handed  to  him. 

"  No  bad  news,  I  hope,"  said  the  Counsel,  who  had  defended, 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  113 

seeing  his  lips  blanch.  "  You  have  had  enough  trouble  to  last 
for  some  time,  I  imagine  ?  " 

"  It  appears  as  if  my  measure  was  not  quite  full  enough," 
said  Owen  quietly.  "  My  father  died  suddenly  last  night, 
down  at  our  place  in  South  Dorset.  The  wire  says,  '  An  attack 
of  cerebral  haemorrhage/  probably  brought  on  by  worry  and 
distress  of  mind  over  this  damned  affair  of  mine."  He  ground 
his  teeth  together,  and  went  on:  "  I  must  go  to  my  mother 
without  delay.  How  soon  can  I  get  away  from  here  ?  " 

It  was  oddly  difficult  to  realize  that  all  the  doors  were  open, 
and  that  the  following  shadow  of  the  Man  In  Blue  would  no 
longer  dog  his  footsteps.  It  was  strange  to  drive  home  in  the 
brougham  of  a  friend  to  Chilworth  Street,  and  let  himself  into 
the  dusty,  neglected,  close-smelling,  shut-up  house.  All  the 
servants  were  out;  probably  they  had  been  making  holiday 
through  all  the  weeks  that  had  preceded  the  Trial.  His  man 
returned  as  the  master  finished  packing  a  portmanteau  for  that 
journey  down  to  Dorsetshire.  Saxham.  left  him  to  finish  while 
he  changed  his  clothes  and  scrawled  a  letter  to  Mildred.  Noth- 
ing else  but  this  death  could  have  kept  him  from  hurrying  to  the 
embrace  of  those  dear  arms.  As  it  was,  he  half  expected  her  to 
rush  in  upon  him,  stammering,  weeping,  clinging  to  him  in 
her  overwhelming  relief  and  gladness.  ...  At  every  rumble 
and  stoppage  of  wheels  in  the  street,  at  every  ring,  he  made 
sure  that  she  was  coming.  But  she  did"  not  come,  and  he  sent 
his  man  to  Pont  Street  with  his  letter,  and  went  down  into 
Dorsetshire  by  special  train  from  Waterloo,  and  found  the 
dead  man's  dogcart  waiting  for  him,  with  the  old  bay  cob  in 
harness,  and  the  old  coachman  who  had  taught  him  to  ride  his 
pony  waiting,  with  a  yard  of  crape  about  his  sleeve,  and  drove 
through  the  deep,  ferny  lanes  to  the  old  home  standing  in  its 
mantle  of  midsummer  leafage  and  blossom  in  the  wide  gardens 
whose  myrtle  and  lavender  hedges  overhung  the  beach  below. 
There  was  a  little,  old,  bent,  white-haired  woman  in  a  shabby 
black  gown  and  white  India  shawl  waiting  for  him  on  the 
threshold,  and  only  by  the  indomitable,  unquailing  spirit  that 
looked  out  of  her  bright  black  eyes  did  Owen  Saxham  recognize 
his  mother.  She  called  him  her  David's  dearest  son,  and  her 
own  boy,  and  took  both  his  hands,  and  drew  his  head  down,  and 
kissed  him  solemnly  upon  the  forehead. 

"  That  is  for  your  father,  my  dear,"  she  said.  "  He  never 
doubted  you  for  one  moment,  Owen.  And  this  is  for  myself. 
We  have  both  believed  in  you  implicitly  throughout.  We 


114  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

would  not  even  write  and  tell  you  so.  It  would  have  seemed, 
your  father  thought,  like  admitting,  tacitly,  that  we  doubted 
our  son.  But  other  people  believed  you  guilty,  and  oh,  Owen, 
I  think  it  killed  him!" 

"  I  know  that  it  has  killed  him,"  Owen  Saxham  said  simply. 
The  early  morning  light  showed  to  the  mother's  eyes  the  rav- 
ages wrought  in  her  son's  face  by  the  mental  anguish  and  the 
physical  strain  of  those  terrible  weeks  of  May  and  June,  and 
Mrs.  Saxham,  for  the  first  time  since  the  Squire's  death,  burst 
into  a  passion  of  weeping.  Owen's  eyes  were  dry,  even  when 
he  stooped  to  kiss  the  high,  broad  forehead  of  the  grand  old 
grey  head  that  lay  upon  the  snowy,  lavender-scented  pillow  in 
the  cool,  airy  death-chamber,  where  the  perfume  of  the  climb- 
ing roses  that  flowered  about  the  open  casements  came  in  drifts 
across  the  sharp,  clean  odour  of  disinfectant. 

Captain  Saxham  arrived  late  that  night.  His  greeting  of 
his  brother  was  stiff  and  constrained;  his  grey  eyes  avoided 
Owen's  blue  ones;  he  did  not  refer  to  the  events  of  the  past 
six  weeks.  He  had  always  had  a  habit  of  twisting  and  biting 
at  one  of  the  short,  thick  ends  of  his  frizzy  light  brown 
moustache.  Now  he  wrenched  and  gnawed  at  it  incessantly, 
and  his  usually  florid  complexion  had  deteriorated  to  a  muddy 
pallor.  Black  mufti  did  not  suit  the  handsome  martial  figure, 
and  there  is  no  dwelling  so  wearisome  as  a  house  of  mourning, 
when  the  servants  move  about  on  tiptoe,  wearing  faces  of  funer- 
eal solemnity,  and  the  afternoon  tea-tray  is  carried  in  in  state, 
like  the  corpse  of  a  domestic  usage  on  its  way  to  the  cemetery, 
with  the  silver  spirit-kettle  bubbling  behind  it  as  chief  mourner. 
But,  as  the  elder  son,  there  was  plenty  to  occupy  Captain  Sax- 
ham.  There  was  business  to  be  transacted  with  the  Squire's 
solicitor,  with  his  bailiff,  with  one  or  two  of  the  principal  ten- 
ants. There  were  the  arrangements  to  be  made  for  the  fu- 
neral, and  for  the  extension  of  hospitality  to  relatives  and  friends 
who  came  from  a  distance  to  attend  it,  When  it  was  over  and 
the  long  string  of  County  carriages  had  driven  home  to  their 
respective  coach-houses,  Owen  Saxham  returned  to  town. 

"  Give  my  dear  love  to  Mildred.  Tell  her,  if  she  grudged 
the  first  sight  of  you  to  me,  she  will  forgive  me  when  she  has 
a  son  of  her  own,"  his  mother  said. 

"  You  talk  as  though  she  were  my  wife !  "  he  said,  the  bitter 
lines  about  his  set  mouth  softening  in  a  smile. 

"  She  would  be  but  for  what  is  past,"  said  Mrs.  Saxham. 
"  She  must  be  soon,  for  your  sake.  Your  father  would  have 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  115 

wished  that  there  should  be  as  little  delay  as  possible.  Marry 
quietly  at  once,  and  take  her  abroad.  If  she  loves  you,  as  I 
know  she  does,  and  must,  she  will  not  regret  the  wedding-gown 
from  Paquin's  and  the  six  bridesmaids  in  Directoire  hats." 

For  that  deferred  wedding  was  to  have  been  a  gorgeous  and 
impressive  function  at  St.  George's,  Hanover  Square,  with  a 
Bishop  in  lawn  sleeves  to  pronounce  the  nuptial  benediction, 
palms,  spiraea,  Eucharistic  lilies,  and  white  rambler  roses  every- 
where, while  the  celebrated  "  Non  Angli  sed  Angeli  "  choir 
of  boy-choristers  had  been  specially  engaged  to  render  the  an* 
them  with  proper  fervour  and  give  due  effect  to  "The  Voice 
that  Breathed." 

Owen  promised  and  went  back  to  London.  There  were 
cards  and  envelopes  upon  the  salver  in  the  hall,  but  no  letter 
from  Mildred.  That  stabbed  him  to  the  heart.  But  it  lay 
waiting  upon  the  writing-table  in  his  study — the  letter — her 
letter. 

He  snatched  at  it  in  desperate  haste.  He  had  been  deeply, 
secretly,  horribly  wounded  because  she  had  not  written  to  him 
before.  .  .  .  Not  a  line,  O  God! — not  a  written  line,  in 
answer  to  that  letter  in  which  he  told  her  of  the  acquittal,  and 
of  his  father's  death,  and  of  his  own  anguish  at  having  to  answer 
the  stern  call  of  filial  duty,  and  leave  dear  Love  uncomforted 
by  even  one  kiss  after  all  these  weeks  of  famine,  and  hurry 
away  to  lay  that  grand  grey  head  in  the  vault  that  covered 
so  many  Saxhams.  Not  a  line.  But  here  was  the  letter, 
which  his  idiot  of  a  servant,  demoralized  by  the  recent  catas- 
trophe, had  forgotten  to  send  on. 

He  tore  the  envelope  open.  Her  letter  bore  the  date  of  that 
day.  She  said  she  had  written  several  times  and  torn  them 
up  ...  it  was  so  difficult  to  be  just  to  him  and  true  to  her- 
self. ...  It  was  a  roundabout,  involved,  youthfully  grandilo- 
quent epistle  in  which  Mildred  confessed  that  her  love  for 
Owen  was  dead,  that  nothing  could  ever  resuscitate  it,  that  she 
could  not,  could  not,  ever  marry  him,  and  that  she  had  returned 
in  an  accompanying  packet  his  ring,  and  presents,  and  letters, 
and  would  ever  remain  his  friend  (underlined)  Mildred.  In  a 
rather  wobbly  postscript,  she  begged  him  not  to  write  or  to  at- 
tempt to  see  her,  because  her  decision  was  irrevocable.  She 
spelt  the  word  with  only  one  r. 

Saxham  read  the  letter  three  times  deliberately.  The  walls 
of  the  castle  he  had  built,  and  fondly  believed  to  be  a  work  of 
Cyclopean  masonry,  had  come  tumbling  about  his  ears,  and  lo! 


ii6  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

the  huge  blocks  were  only  bits  of  painted  card,  and  the  Lady  of 
the  Castle,  his  true  love,  was  the  false  queen,  after  all.  He 
folded  up  the  letter  and  put  it  away  in  his  pocket-book,  and 
went  over  to  the  mantel-glass  and  looked  steadily  at  the  reflec- 
tion of  his  own  square  face,  haggard  and  drawn  and  ghastly, 
with  eyes  of  startling  blue  flaring  out  from  under  a  scowling 
smudge  of  meeting  black  eyebrows.  He  laughed  harshly,  and 
a  mocking  devil  looked  out  of  those  desperate  eyes,  and  laughed 
back.  He  unlocked  an  oak-and-silver-mounted  cellaret  cabinet, 
and  got  out  a  decanter  of  brandy,  and  filled  a  tumbler,  and 
;  drank  the  liquor  off.  It  numbed  the  unbearable  mental  agony, 
'though  it  had  apparently  no  other  effect.  But  probably  he  was 
drunk  when  he  rang  the  bell  and  said  to  his  man : 

"  Tait,  do  you  believe  there  is  a  God?" 

Tait's  smooth,  waxy  countenance  did  not  easily  express  sur- 
prise. He  answered,  as  if  the  question  had  been  quite  in  the 
commonplace,  ordinary  nature  of  his  domestic  duties: 

"  Can't  say  I  do,  sir.  I  reckon  the  parsons  are  responsible 
for  floating  'Im,  and  that  they  made  a  precious  good  thing  out 
of  bearin'  stock  in  Heaven  until  the  purchasers  began  to  ask 
for  delivery,  and  after  that  .  .  ."  He  chuckled  dryly.  "  I've 
lived  with  one  or  two  of  'em,  and,  if  I  may  say  so,  sir — I  know 
the  breed." 

"  He  knows  .  .  .  the  breed  .  .  ."  repeated  Saxham  heavily. 

He  asked  another  question,  in  the  same  thick,  hesitating  way, 
as  he  moved  across  the  carpet  to  the  oak-and-silver  cabinet. 

"  Tait,  when  things  went  damned  badly  with  you,  when  that 
other  man  let  you  in  for  the  bill  you  backed  for  him,  and  that 
girl  you  were  to  have  married  went  off  with  someone  else, 
what  did  you  do  to  keep  yourself  from  brooding?  Because  you 
must  have  done  something,  man,  as  you're  alive  today!" 

Tait  looked  at  his  master  dubiously  as  he  poured  out  more 
brandy,  and  went  over  and  stood  upon  the  hearthrug  with  his 
back  to  the  empty  fireplace,  drinking  it  in  gulps.  "  I  did  what 
you're  doing  now,  sir:  I  took  a  sight  of  drink  to  keep  the 
trouble  down.  And •"  He  hesitated. 

"  Go  on,"  said  Saxham,  nodding  over  the  tumbler. 

"  You're  not  like  other  gentlemen  in  your  ways,  sir,"  said 
smooth  Tait,  "  and  that  makes  me  'esitate  in  saying  it.  But 
I  took  on  a  gay,  agreeable  young  woman  of  the  free-and-easy 
sort,  and  went  in  for  a  bit  o'  pleasure,  and  more  drink  along 
with  it.  One  nail  drives  out  another,  you  know,  sir.  And  if 
the  young  lady  have  thrown  you  hover " 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  117 

"Why,  you  damned,  white-gilled,  prying  brute!  you  must 
have  been  reading  my  correspondence,"  said  Saxham  thickly,  as 
he  lifted  the  tumbler  to  his  mouth. 

Tait  grinned.  He  could  venture  to  tell  his  master,  drunk, 
what  he  would  not  have  dared  to  tell  him  sober. 

"  No  need  for  that,  sir.  I've  come  and  gone  between  this 
house  and  Pont  Street  too  often  not  to  know  what  was  in 
the  wind.  Why,  Captain  Saxham  was  there  with  her  often 
and  often  when  you  never  suspected.  .  .  ." 

The  tumbler  fell  from  Saxham's  hand,  and  struck  the  fender, 
and  smashed  into  a  hundred  glittering  bits. 

"  Go ! "  said  Tait's  master,  perfectly,  suddenly,  dangerously 
sober,  and  pointing  to  the  door.  The  man  delayed  to  finish 
his  sentence. 

"  While  you  were  in  Holloway,  sir,  and  all  through  the 
Trial.  .  .  ." 

The  door,  contrary  to  Tait's  discreet,  usual  habit,  had  been 
left  open.  He  vanished  through  it  with  harlequin-like  agility 
as  a  terrible,  white-faced  black  figure  seemed  to  leap  upon 
him.  .  .  . 

"  I've  'ad  an  escape  for  my  life!"  he  said,  having  reached 
in  a  series  of  bounds  the  safer  regions  below  stairs. 

"  Of  the  Doctor  ?  .  .  .  Go  on  with  your  rubbishing  non- 
sense !  "  said  the  cook. 

"What  did  you  go  and  do  to  upset  'im,  pore  dear?"  de- 
manded the  housemaid,  who  was  more  imaginative,  and  cher- 
ished the  buddings  of  a  romantic  passion  for  one  who  should 
be  for  ever  nameless: 

"  Her  at  Pont  Street  has  wrote  to  give  'im  the  go-by — that's 
what  she've  done,"  said  pale-faced  Tait,  wiping  his  dewy  brow. 
"  And  seeing  the  Doctor  for  the  first  time  since  I've  been  in 
his  service  a  bit  overtook  with  liquor,  and  more  free  and  easy 
like  than  customary — being  a  gentleman  you  or  me  would 
'esitate  to  take  a  liberty  with  in  the  ordinary  way  o'  things — I 
thought  I'd  let  'im  know  about  the  Goings  On." 

"  Of  them  two  .  .  ."  interpolated  the  cook — "  Her  and  the 
Captain." 

"  Shameless,  I  call  'em ! "  exclaimed  the  incandescent  house- 
maid as  Tait  signified  assent. 

"  'Aven't  they  kep'  it  dark,  though ! "  wondered  the 
cook. 

"  They're  what  I  call,"  stated  Tait,  who  had  not  quite  got 
over  the  desertion  of  the  young  woman  he  was  to  have  married, 


u8  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

and  who  had  gone  off  with  somebody  else,  "  a  precious  downy 
couple.  And  what  I  say  is — it's  a  Riddance !  " 

"How  did  'e  take  it,  pore  dear?"  gulped  the  housemaid. 

"  Like  he's  took  everything — that  is,  up  to  the  last  moment," 
admitted  Tait.  "  But  this  is  about  the  last  straw." 

The  housemaid  dissolved  in  tears. 

"  He'll  get  another  young  lady,"  said  the  cook  confidently. 
"  And  him  so  'andsome  an'  so  clever,  and  such  heaps  of  carriage- 
swells  for  patients." 

Tait  shook  his  prim,  respectable  head. 

"  The  swells  '11  show  their  tongues  to  another  man  now, 
my  gal,  who  'asn't  the  dirt  of  the  Old  Bailey  on  his  coatsleeve. 
Whistle  for  patients  now,  that's  what  the  doctor  may.  Why, 
every  one  of  'em  has  paid  their  bills,  and  them  that  haven't 
have  asked  for  their  accounts  to  be  sent  in.  And  it's  '  Lady 
So-and-so  presents  her  compliments,'  instead  of  '  Dear  Dr. 
Saxham.'  Dene  for,  he  is,  at  least  as  far  as  the  West  End's 
concerned.  .  .  .  Mind,  I  don't  set  up  to  be  infallible,  but  ex- 
perience justifies  a  certain  amount  of  cocksureness,  and  what  I 
say  is — Done  for!  Best  he  can  do  is — sell  the  practice,  and 
lease,  and  plate,  and  pictures,  furniture,  and  so  on,  for  what- 
ever he  can  get — the  movables  would  have  provoked  spirited 
biddin'  at  auction  if  the  verdict  had  been  Guilty,  but,  under 
the  circumstances,  they  won't  bring  a  twentieth  part  of  their 
valoo — and  go  Abroad."  Tait's  gesture  was  large  and  vague. 

"  Foreign  parts.  Pore  dear,  it  do  seem  cruel !  "  sighed  the 
cook. 

"  And  'is  young  lady  false  to  'im,  and  all.  I  wonder  he  don't 
do  away  with  hisself,"  sobbed  the  housemaid.  "  I  do,  reely!  " 

"  With  all  them  wicked  knives  and  deadly  bottles  handy," 
added  the  cook. 

"Not  him!"  said  Tait.  "I'm  ready  to  lay  any  man  the 
sporting  odds  against  him  committing  sooicide.  He's  not  the 
sort.  Lord !  what  was  that  ?  " 

That  was  only  the  oversetting  of  a  chair  upstairs. 


XVII 

WHILE  the  servants  talked  in  the  kitchen  the  master  had  been 
sitting  quietly  in  the  darkening  study.  All  without  and  within 
the  man  was  eddying,  swirling  blackness.  Heat  beat  and 
glowed  upon  his  forehead,  like  the  radiation  from  molten  metal ; 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  119 

there  was  a  winnowing  and  fanning  as  of  giant  wings  or  leap- 
ing of  furnace  fires.  The  blood  in  his  throbbing  temples  sang 
a  dull,  tuneless  song.  But  presently  he  became  aware  of  an- 
other kind  of  singing. 

It  was  a  little  hissing  voice  that  came  from  the  inside  of 
the  oak-and-silver  liquor  cabinet.  And  it  sang  a  song  that  the 
man  who  sat  near  had  never  heard  before. 

"  Why  think  of  the  sharp  lancet  or  the  keen  razor,  why  long 
for  the  swift  dismissing  pang  of  the  fragrant  acid,  or  the  leap 
down  upon  the  railway-track  under  the  crushing,  pulping  iron 
wheels?  "  sang  the  little  voice.  "  I  can  give  you  Forgetfulness. 
I  can  bring  you  Death.  Not  that  death  of  the  body  which,  for 
all  you  know,  may  mean  a  keener,  more  perfect  capability  to  live 
and  suffer  on  the  part  of  the  Soul,  stripped  from  the  earthly 
husk  that  has  burdened  and  deadened  it.  The  Death  that  is 
Death  in  Life.  .  .  .  Here  am  I,  ready  to  be  your  minister. 
Drink  deep,  and  die!  " 

The  man  who  heard  lifted  his  white,  wild,  desperate  face. 
The  song  came  more  clearly. 

"  Wronged,  outraged,  betrayed  of  the  God  you  blindly  be- 
lieved in  and  the  man  and  the  woman  who  had  your  passionate 
love,  your  absolute  faith,  have  your  revenge  upon  the  One — as 
upon  those  two  others.  Degrade,  cast  down,  deface,  the  image 
of  your  Maker  in  you.  Hurl  back  every  gift  of  His,  prostitute 
and  debase  every  faculty.  Your  Body,  is  it  not  your  own,  to  do 
with  as  you  choose  ?  Your  Soul,  is  it  not  your  helpless  prisoner, 
while  you  keep  it  in  its  cage  of  clay?  Revenge,  revenge, 
through  the  body  and  the  soul,  upon  Him  who  has  mocked 
you !  Do  you  not  hear  Him  laugh  as  you  sit  there  desolate  in 
the  darkness — poor,  broken  reed  that  thought  itself  an  oak  of 
might — alone,  while  your  brother  kisses  the  sweet  lips  that  were 
yours.  David  and  Mildred  are  laughing  too,  at  you.  Hasten 
to  efface  every  memory  of  the  lying  kisses  she  has  given  you  upon 
the  bosoms  of  the  Daughters  of  Pleasure!  Love,  revel,  drink! 
Drink,  I  say,  and  you  will  be  able  to  laugh  at  the  One  and  the 
two.  .  .  ." 

The  little  hissing  voice  drove  Saxham  mad.  He  leaped  up, 
frenzied,  oversetting  the  chair.  He  tore  open  and  threw  wide 
the  doors  of  the  oak-and-silver  cabinet,  and  sought  in  it  with 
shaking  hands.  He  found  a  bottle  of  champagne  and  the 
brandy-decanter,  and  a  long  tumbler,  and  knocked  off  the  wired 
neck  of  the  bottle  against  the  chimneypiece,  and  crashed  the 
foaming  wine  into  the  crystal,  and  filled  up  the  glass  with 


120  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

brandy,  and  drank  down  the  stinging,  bubbling,  hissing  mixture, 
and  laughed  as  he  set  the  tumbler  down. 

The  thing  inside  the  oak-and-silver  cabinet  laughed  too. 

***** 

The  hall-door  shut  heavily  as  Tait  and  the  women  in  the 
kitchen  sat  and  listened.  They  had  not  spoken  since  the  crash 
of  the  falling  chair  in  the  room  overhead.  The  area-door  was 
open  to  the  hot,  sickly  night  air  of  London  in  Summer.  Tait 
slid  noiselessly  out  and  listened  as  his  master  hailed  a  passing 
hansom  and  jumped  lightly  in.  The  flaps  banged  together,  the 
driver  pulled  open  the  roof-trap  and  leaned  down  to  catch  the 
shouted  address.  Tait's  sharp  ear  caught  it  too,  and  the  know- 
ing grin  that  decorated  the  features  of  the  cabman  was  re- 
flected upon  his  decent  smug  countenance.  His  tongue  was  in 
.his  cheek  as  he  returned  to  the  kitchen.  For  his  master  had 
given  the  direction  of  a  house  of  ill-fame. 

Thus  the  door  would  have  shut  for  ever  upon  the  old,  strenu- 
ous, honourable,  cleanly,  useful  life  of  Owen  Saxham,  were  it 
not  that  the  For  Ever  of  humanity  means  only  a  little  space  of 
years  with  God — sometimes  only  a  little  space  of  hours.  Saxham 
did  not  need  the  evidence  of  the  shower  of  cheques  from  people 
who  hated  paying,  the  request  from  the  Committee  of  his  Club 
that  he  would  resign  membership,  the  averted  faces  of  his  ac- 
quaintances, the  elaborate  cordiality  of  his  friends,  to  tell  him 
what  he  knew  already.  As  the  astute  Tait  had  said,  as  Society 
knew  already,  he  was  a  ruined  man.  He  had  made  money,  but 
the  enormous  expenses  of  the  Defence  swallowed  up  thousands. 
By  bringing  an  action  against  the  Treasury  he  might  have  re- 
covered a  portion  of  the  costs — so  he  was  told,  but  he  had  had 
enough  of  Law.  He  resigned  his  post  at  the  Hospital,  in  spite 
of  a  thinly-worded  remonstrance  from  the  Senior  Physician. 
He  dismissed  his  servants  generously.  He  sold  his  lease  and 
furniture  and  other  property  through  a  firm  of  auctioneers  who 
robbed  him,  and  sold  what  stocks  he  had  not  realized  upon,  and 
wrote  a  farewell  letter  to  his  mother,  and  sailed  for  South 
Africa.  Thenceforward  he  was  to  build  his  nest  with  the  birds 
of  night,  and  rise  from  the  stertorous  sleep  that  is  of  drunken- 
ness only  to  drink  himself  drunk  again. 

From  assiduous  letter-writing  friends  David  heard  reports 
of  his  brother  that  grieved  him  deeply.  He  told  these  things 
to  Mildred,  and  they  shook  their  heads  over  them  and  sighed 
together.  Poor  Owen!  It  was  most  fortunate  for  his  family 
that  the  Jury  had  taken  so  lenient  a  view  of  the  case  .  .  . 


121 

otherwise  .  .  .  !  They  were  quite  certain  in  their  own  minds 
that  poor  Owen  had  been  culpable,  if  not  guilty.  They  were 
married  six  months  later.  The  Directoire  hats  were  out  of 
date,  of  course,  but  Louis  Quinze,  with  Watteau  trimmings, 
suited  the  six  bridesmaids  marvellously,  and  the  "  Non  Angli 
sed  Angeli "  choir  rendered  the  Anthem  and  the  "  Voice  that 
Breathed  "  to  perfection. 

And  Mildred,  who  never  omitted  her  nightly  prayers,  made 
a  special  petition  for  the  reformation  of  poor  misguided  Owen 
upon  her  wedding-night. 

"  Because  we  are  so  happy,"  she  told  David,  who  had  found  her 
kneeling,  white  and  exquisitely  virginal  in  her  lace  and  cambric 
draperies  by  the  bedside.  "  And  he  must  be  so  miserable.  And 
you  know,  though  I  never  really  cared  for  him,  he  was  perfectly 
devoted  to  me." 

"Who  could  help  it?"  cooed  enamoured  David,  and  knelt 
and  kissed  his  bride's  white  feet.  The  white  feet  bore  no  ugly 
stains,  although  to  reach  the  bridal  bed  towards  which  he  now 
drew  her  they  had  trodden  recklessly  upon  a  wounded,  bleeding 
heart. 

XVIII 

THE  Dop  Doctor  lifted  his  head  as  the  bell  of  the  front-door 
rang  loudly  at  the  back  passage  end.  Two  mounted  officers 
of  the  Military  Staff  at  Gueldersdorp  had  trotted  up  the  street 
with  an  orderly  behind  them  a  moment  before.  The  elder  of 
the  two  had  pulled  sharply  up  in  front  of  the  green  door  whose 
brass-plate  flamed  with  the  last  rays  of  sunset.  He  had  dis- 
mounted lightly  and  gone  up  the  steps  and  rung,  saying  some- 
thing to  his  companion.  The  other  officer  had  saluted  and 
ridden  on,  as  though  to  carry  out  some  order;  the  orderly  had 
come  up  and  got  off  his  horse  and  taken  the  bridle  of  the 
officer's,  as  the  Dutch  dispensary  attendant,  Koets,  had  plodded 
heavily  along  the  passage  and  opened  the  door,  and  now 
slouched  heavily  back,  ushering  in  a  presumable  patient. 

"  Light  the  lamp,"  said  the  Dop  Doctor  in  Dutch  to  the  fac- 
totum, as  he  rose  up  heavily  out  of  his  chair.  "  It  will  be  dark 
directly." 

"  There  is  no  need  of  more  light,  I  am  obliged  to  you,"  said 
the  stranger,  cool,  alert,  brown  of  face  as  of  dress:  a  thin  man, 
distinct  of  speech,  quiet  of  manner,  and  with  singularly  vivid 
eyes  of  light  hazel.  "  In  the  actual  dark  I  can  see  quite  clearly. 


122  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

A  matter  of  training  and  habit,  because  I  began  life  as  a  short- 
sighted lad.  Do  we  need  your  assistant  further  ?  " 

In  indirect  answer  to  the  pointed  question,  the  Dop  Doctor 
turned  to  the  Dutch  dispensary  assistant,  and  said  curtly: 

"Gauit!" 

Koets  went,  not  without  a  scowl  at  the  visitor. 

"  A  sulky  man  and  a  surly  master,"  thought  the  stranger, 
scanning  with  those  observant  eyes  of  his  the  gaunt  figure  in  the 
shabby  grey  clothes.  "  Has  seen  trouble  and  lived  hard,"  he 
added,  mentally  noting  the  haggard  lines  of  the  square  face 
under  the  massive  forehead,  over  which  a  plume  of  badly- 
brushed  hair,  black  with  threads  of  grey  in  it,  fell  awkwardly. 

"  English  and  a  University  man,  I  should  say.  Those 
clothes  were  cut  by  a  Bond  Street  tailor  in  the  height  of  fash- 
ion five  years  back.  And  the  man  is  in  the  second  stage  of 
recovery  from  a  bout  of  drunkenness — unless  he  drugs."  But 
even  while  the  visitor  was  taking  these  memoranda,  he  was 
saying  in  the  customary  tone  of  polite  inquiry: 

"  I  have,  I  think,  the  pleasure  of  speaking  to  Dr.  Williams?  " 

"  Sir,  you  have  not.  Dr.  De  Boursy- Williams  has  left  for 
Cape  Town  with  his  family.  You  are  speaking  to  his  tem- 
porary substitute."  The  bloodshot  blue  eyes  met  his  own  in- 
differently. 

"  Indeed !  Well,  I  do  not  grudge  the  family  if,  as  I  believe 
is  the  case,  it  chiefly  ranks  upon  the  distaff  side.  But  the 
Doctor  will  miss  a  good  deal  of  interesting  practice.  As  to 
yourself,  you  will  allow  the  inquiry.  .  .  .  Are  you  a  surgeon 
as  well  as  a  medical  practitioner?  " 

"  If  I  were  not,  I  should  not  be  here." 

"  I  will  put  my  question  differently.  I  trust  you  will  not 
•consider  its  repetition  offensive.  Have  you  an  extensive  ex- 
perience in  dealing  with  gunshot  wounds?" 

Saxham  said  roughly: 

"  I  have  experience  to  a  certain  extent.  I  will  go  no 
farther  than  to  say  so.  I  am  not  undergoing  examination  as 
to  my  professional  capabilities  that  I  am  aware  of,  and  if  you 
doubt  them  you  are  perfectly  at  liberty  to  seek  medical  advice 
elsewhere." 

"  My  good  sir,  I  have  been  elsewhere,  and  the  other  doctor, 
when  he  learned  the  purport  of  my  visit,  relished  it  as  little  as 
your  principal  is  likely  to  do.  With  the  imminent  prospect  of 
a  siege  before  us,  we  are  making  .  .  ."  The  speaker,  slipping 
one  hand  behind  him,  moved  a  step  backwards  and  nearer  to 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  123 

the  street-door.  "  As  I  said,  sir,  with  the  imminent  prospect 
of  a  siege  before  us,  we  are  making  a  house-to-house  requisi- 
tion. .  .  .  Ah,  I  thought  as  much !  " 

The  door-knob  had  been  quietly  turned,  the  door  suddenly 
pulled  open,  bringing  with  it  Koets,  the  Dutch  dispensary  at- 
tendant, whose  large  red  ear  had  been  glued  to  the  outer  key- 
hole. 

"  Your  Dutch  factotum  has  been  listening.  Pick  yourself 
off  the  mat,  Jan,  and  take  yourself  out  of  earshot."  The 
stranger  whistled  the  beginning  of  a  pleasant  little  tune,  with 
a  flavour  of  Savoy  Opera  about  it. 

"  Ik  heb  not  the  neem  of  Jan,"  snarled  the  detected  Koets,  re- 
tiring in  disorder. 

The  whistler  left  off  in  the  middle  of  a  deftly-executed  em- 
bellishment to  say:  "  Unfortunate;  because  I  don't  know  the 
Dutch  word  for  spy."  The  keen  hazel  eyes  and  the  haggard 
blue  ones  met,  and  there  was  the  faint  semblance  of  a  smile  on 
the  grim  mouth  of  the  Dop  Doctor.  Keeping  the  door  open, 
the  visitor  went  on: 

"  I  have  some  notes  here — entries  copied  from  the  railway 
freight-books.  Three  weeks  ago  twenty  carboys  of  carbolic 
acid,  with  a  considerable  consignment  of  other  antiseptics, 
surgical  necessaries,  drugs,  and  so  forth  were  delivered  to  Dr. 
Williams'  order  at  this  address.  Frankly,  as  the  officer  com- 
manding Her  Majesty's  troops  on  this  border,  I  am  here  to 
make  a  sequestration  of  the  things  I  have  mentioned,  with  all 
other  medical  and  surgical  requisites  stored  upon  the  premises 
that  are  likely  to  be  of  use  to  us  at  the  Hospital.  In  the  name 
of  the  Imperial  Government." 

The  smile  died  out  on  the  grim  mouth.  A  sombre  anger 
burned  in  the  blue  eyes  of  the  haggard  man  in  shabby  grey., 

"  Curse  the  Imperial  Government !  "  said  the  Dop  Doctor. 

The  stranger  nodded  in  serious  assent.  "  Certainly,  curse 
it!  It  is  your  privilege  and  mine,  shared  in  common  with  all 
other  Britons,  to  damn  our  Government,  as  long  as  we  remain 
loyal  to  our  Queen  and  country." 

The  other  man  shook  with  a  sudden  uncontrollable  spasm 
of  hate,  rage,  and  loathing.  He  clenched  his  hand  and  shook 
it  in  the  air  as  he  cried : 

"  You  employ  the  stock  phrases  of  your  profession.  They 
have  long  ceased  to  mean  anything  to  me.  I  have  been  the 
victim  and  the  sacrifice  of  British  laws.  I  have  been  formally 
pardoned  by  the  State  for  a  crime  I  never  committed.  I  have 


124  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

been  robbed,  plundered,  ruined,  betrayed,  by  the  monstrous 
thing  that  bears  the  name  of  British  Justice.  And  as  I  loathe 
and  hate  it,  so  do  I  cast  off  and  repudiate  the  name  of  English- 
man. You  speak  of  the  imminent  prospect  of  a  siege.  What 
other  causes  have  operated  to  bring  it  about  but  British  greed, 
and  the  British  lust,  for  paramountcy  and  suzerainty  and  posses- 
,sion?  Liberal,  or  Conservative,  or  Radical,  or  Unionist,  the 
'(diplomats  and  lawyers  and  financiers  who  urge  on  your  political 
machinery  by  bombast  and  bribes  and  catchwords  and  lying 
promises,  are  swayed  by  one  motive — governed  by  one  desire — 
lands  and  diamonds  and  gold.  Wealth  that  is  the  property  of 
other  men,  soil  that  has  been  fertilized  by  the  sweat  of  a  nation 
of  agriculturists,  whom  Great  Britain  despised  until  she  learned 
that  gold  lay  under  their  orchards  and  cornfields."  He  broke 
into  a  jarring  laugh.  "  And  it  is  for  these,  the  robbers  and 
desperadoes,  that  the  British  Army  is  to  do  its  duty,  and  for 
them  that  De  Boursy- Williams  is  to  help  pay  the  piper.  As 
for  his  property,  which  you  are  about  to  commandeer  in  the 
name  of  the  British  Imperial  Government,  I  suppose  I  am 
legally  responsible,  being  left  here  in  charge.  Well,  be  it 
so.  ...  I  can  only  protest  against  what  I  am  free  to  regard 
as  an  act  of  brigandage,  reflecting  small  credit  upon  your  Serv- 
ice, and  leave  you,  sir,  to  discover  the  whereabouts  of  the  car- 
boys for  yourself !  " 

He  waved  his  hand  contemptuously,  and  swung  towards  the 
door. 

"  A  moment,"  said  the  other  man,  "  in  which  to  assure  you 
that  the  fullest  acknowledgments  will  be  given  in  the  case  of 
the  stores,  and  that  their  owner  will  be  paid  for  them  liberally 
and  ungrudgingly.  And,  granting  that  much  of  what  you  have 
said  is  true,  and  that  the  leaven  of  self-seeking  is  to  be  found 
in  every  man's  nature,  and  that  greed  is  the  predominating  mo- 
tive with  those  men  who,  more  than  others,  work  for  the  build- 
ing-up of  an  Empire  and  the  profitable  union  of  Britain  with 
her  Colonies,  don't  you  think  that  there  may  be  something  in 
the  good  old  footballer's  motto,  '  Play  the  game,  that  your  side 
may  win  '  ?  " 

The  Dop  Doctor  made  a  slight  sound  that  might  have  been 
of  indifferent  assent  or  of  contradiction.  The  other  chose  to 
take  it  as  assent. 

"  Take  the  present  situation,  purely  as  football.  They  have 
picked  me  as  a  forward  player.  And  I  mean — to  play  the 
game ! " 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  125 

The  Dop  Doctor  might  or  might  not  have  heard.  His 
square,  impassive  face  looked  as  if  carved  in  stone. 

"  To  play  the  game,  Doctor.  Perhaps  I  have  my  bone  or 
two  to  pick  with — several  of  the  Institutions  of  my  country. 
Possibly,  but  I  mean  to  play  the  game.  Fate  has  ridden  me 
on  a  saddle-gall  or  two,  and  mixed  too  much  chopped 
straw  in  proportion  to  the  beans,  but — there's  the  game,  and 
I'm  going  to  play  it  for  all  I'm  worth.  As  an  old  Uni- 
versity man,  that  way  of  looking  at  things  ought  to  appeal 
to  you." 

jStill  no  answer  from  the  big,  sullen,  black-haired  man  in  the 
shabby  grey  clothes.  But  his  breathing  was  a  little  quickened, 
and  a  faint,  smouldering  glow  of  something  not  yet  quenched 
in  him  showed  in  the  haggard  blue  eyes. 

"  It's  a  confoundedly  handicapped  game,  too,  on  the  defend- 
ing side.  Doesn't  that  fact  rather  appeal  to  the  sportsman  in 
you,  Doctor?  " 

The  other  said  slowly: 

"  I  gather  that  the  struggle  will  be  unequal.  It  was  stated 
in  my  hearing  yesterday  afternoon  that  a  considerable  force  of 
Boers  were  advancing  on  Gueldersdorp  from  the  direction  of 
Geitfontein,  and,  later,  that  another  body  of  them  were  on  the 
march  along  the  river-valley  from  the  south-west.  I  did  not 
attempt  to  verify  what  I  had  heard  from  my  own  observation. 
I  was — otherwise  engaged."  The  half-incredulous  surprise 
that  the  other  man  could  not  keep  out  of  his  eyes  stung  him  into 
adding: 

"  Frankly,  I  did  not  care  to  trouble.     It  did  not  interest  me." 

The  Colonel  said,  with  a  dry  chuckle: 

"No?  But  it  will  presently,  though!  And,  seen  through 
the  glass  even  now,  it's  an  instructive  spectacle.  Masses  of 
Dutchmen,  well-weaponed  and  thoroughly  fed  if  insufficiently 
washed,  gathering  in  all  quarters — marching  to  the  assembly 
points,  dismounting,  unlimbering,  going  into  laager.  Ten 
thousand  Boers,  at  a  rough  estimate,  not  counting  the  blacks 
they  have  armed  against  us.  .  .  .  And,  behind  our  railway- 
sleepers  and  sand-bags,  eight  hundred  fighting  European  units, 
twenty  per  cent,  of  them  raw  civilians;  and  seven  thousand 
neutral  Barala  and  Kaffirs  and  Zulus  in  the  native  Stad — an 
element  of  danger  lying  dormant,  waiting  the  spark  that  may 
hurry  us  all  sky-high.  ...  By  God,  Doctor,  the  game's  worth 
playing,  except  by  cowards  and  curs !  " 

The  smouldering  glow  in  the  Dop  Doctor's  eyes  had  been 


126  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

formed  into  a  fire.  The  visitor  saw  the  flame  leap,  and  went 
on: 

"  There's  a  native  proverb — I  wonder  whether  you  know  it? 
— a  kind  of  Zulu  version  of  the  regimental  motto,  Vestigia 
nulla  retrorsum.  It  runs  like  this:  '//  we  go  forward,  we 
die;  if  we  go  backward,  we  die.  Better  go  forward  and  die' " 
He  reached  out  a  long,  lean,  brown  right  hand.  "  Come  for- 
'ward  with  us,  Doctor.  We  can  do  with  a  man  like  you ! " 

The  impassive  face  looked  up.  Saxham  gripped  the  offered 
hand  as  a  drowning  man  might  have  done.  He  cried  out 
hoarsely : 

"  You  don't  know  the  sort  of  man  I  am,  Colonel.  But 
everybody  else  in  this  cursed  place  knows,  or  should  know. 
They  call  me  the  Dop  Doctor.  You  understand  what  that 
nickname  implies?"  He  held  out  his  shaking  hands.  "Look 
at  these!  They  would  tell  you  the  truth,  even  if  I  lied.  What 
use  can  a  man  like  me  be  to  you,  or  men  like  you?  I  am 
a  drunkard,  sir,  who  has  not  gone  to  bed  sober  one  night  in 
the  last  five  years !  " 

There  was  a  pause  before  the  Colonel  answered,  filled  up 
in  the  odd  way  characteristic  of  the  man  by  a  softly-whistled 
repetition  of  the  opening  bars  of  the  pleasant  little  tune.  Then 
he  said  quietly  and  dryly: 

"  There  is  another  proverb,  not  Latin  nor  Zulu,  but  Eng- 
lish, which  impresses  on  us  that  it  is  never  too  late  to  mend !  " 
He  looked  at  a  tarnished  Waterbury  watch,  worn  on  a  horse's 
lip-strap.  "  I  am  due  to  inspect  the  Hospital  to-morrow  at 
ten  o'clock  sharp.  If  you  will  meet  me  there  punctually  at 
the  half-hour,  I  shall  have  the  pleasure  of  introducing  you  to 
— your  Colleagues  of  the  Medical  Staff.  And  now,  if  you 
please,  as  I  have  just  five  minutes  left  to  spare,  we  will  have  a 
look  at  those  carboys  of  carbolic." 

:<  They  are  in  the  old  Chinese  godown  at  the  bottom  of  the 
garden,"  said  Saxham.  He  felt  in  one  of  the  baggy  pockets 
of  the  shabby  grey  coat,  pulled  out  a  key,  and  offered  it  si- 
lently to  the  conqueror,  who  motioned  it  back. 

"Keep  it,  if  you'll  be  so  good.  We'll  send  a  waggon  and 
a  careful  man  or  two  round  from  the  Army  Service  Store  De- 
partment within  an  hour;  for  that  stuff  in  your  friend's  car- 
boys is  more  precious  than  rubies  to  us  just  now — a  man's  life 
In  every  teaspoonful.  And  if,  as  you  tell  me,  there  is  some 
mercurial  bichloride,  Taggart  and  the  Medical  Staff  will  jump 
for  joy.  What  we  owe  to  Lister  and  those  fellows!  You'd 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  127 

say  so  if  you'd  ever  seen  gangrene  on  War  Hospital  scale — in 
Afghanistan,  in  1880,  even  as  recently  as  the  Zululand  Cam- 
paign of  1888.  The  Pathan  and  the  Zulu  are  slim,  and  the 
Boer  is  even  slimmer,  but  the  wiliest  customer  of  'em  all  is  the 
Microbe.  No  wonder  Wellington's  old  campaigners  used  to 
slit  the  throats  of  badly-wounded  soldiers,  or  that  the  ambulance 
men  of  Soult  and  Bonaparte  w-ere  merciful  enough  to  knock  on 
the  head  every  poor  beggar  who  had  been  bayonetted  in  the 
body.  They  knew  there  was  not  the  atom  of  a  chance.  But 
to-day  we  know  how  to  deal  with  the  invisible  enemy.  Thanks 
to  Aseptic  Surgery,  that  younger  daughter  of  Science  and 
Genius,  as  some  smart  fellow  puts  it  in  the  National  Review." 
And  the  pleasant  little  tune  was  whistled  through  to  its 
final  grace-note  as  the  two  men  went  down  the  house-passage 
and  crossed  the  garden.  Verily,  to  some  other  men  that  have 
lived  since  Peter  of  the  Nets  has  it  been  given  to  be  fishers  of 
their  kind.  This  man  said  that  night  to  an  officer  of  the  Staff: 


XIX 

"  I  LANDED  twenty  carboys  of  carbolic  to-day,  and  a  lot  of 
other  Hospital  stores,  by  talking  football  to  a  man  who  knows 
the  game,  chiefly  from  the  ball's  point  of  view." 

"  That  counts  to  you,  Colonel,"  called  out  Beauclair,  the 
Chief's  fair,  boyish  junior  aide-de-camp,  from  the  bottom  of 
the  table,  "  against  the  awful  failure  you  were  grousing  about 
the  other  night." 

"  Ah !  you  mean  when  I  tried  to  frighten  some  Sisters  of 
Mercy  into  leaving  the  town  by  painting  them  a  luridly-col- 
oured verbal  picture  of  the  perils  of  the  present  situation,"  said 
the  Colonel.  His  keen  hazel  eyes  twinkled,  though  his  mouth 
was  grave.  "  I  ought  to  have  remembered  that  you  can't  scare 
a  religious,  be  he  or  she  Roman  Catholic,  Buddhist,  or 
Mohammedan,  by  pointing  to  the  King  of  Terrors.  He  does 
to  frighten  lay-folk,  but  for  the  other  Death's  grisly  skeleton- 
hand  holds  out  the  Keys  of  Heaven." 

"What  will  it  hold  for  some  of  us  others,  I  wonder?" 
said  one  of  the  dinner-guests,  a  moody-looking  civilian,  of 
Semitic  features,  whose  evening  clothes  made  a  dull  contrast 
with  the  mess-dress  of  the  Staff  officers  gathered  about  their 
Chief's  table  in  his  quarters  at  Nixey's  Hotel  on  the  Market 
Square. 


128  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

The  host  leaned  forward  to  reply: 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Levison  .  .  .  special  mention  in  Despatches 
Above,  with  honours  and  promotion  for  those  of  us  who  have 
been  approved  worthy.  For  others,  who  have  tried  and 
failed,  a  merciful  overlooking  of  blunders,  a  generous  ac- 
ceptance of  the  Intention  where  the  Performance  came  short. 
And  for  the  rest,  as  for  all  ...  a  grave  on  the  yellow  veld 
in  the  shadow  of  a  rock  or  thorn-bush,  with  the  turquoise  sky 
of  day  overhead,  shimmering  in  the  white-hot  sunshine;  or  an 
ocean  of  purple  ether,  ridden  by  what  old  Lucian  called  '  the 
golden  galley  of  the  regnant  Moon.'  That  in  South  Africa; 
and  at  home  in  England,  one's  memory  kept  warm  and  living 
in,  say,  three  hearts  that  recognize  the  best  in  one,  and  love  it, 
another's  heart,  the  heart  of  a  friend — and  hers!" 

There  was  no  insincerity  of  flattery  in  the  hum  of  applaud- 
ing comment  that  ensued.  All  earnest  original  thought  has 
beauty;  and  this  man  could  not  only  think,  but  clothe  his 
thoughts  in  direct  and  simple  language,  and  add  to  it  the 
charm  of  well-modulated  and  musical  utterance. 

"  I  call  that  good  enough,"  said  the  senior  Staff  Officer, 
a  dark,  handsome,  eagle-faced  Guardsman,  who  bore  a  great 
historic  name,  "  for  you  or  me  or  any  other  fellow  alive — we're 
not  taking  into  account  the  living  dead  ones." 

The  Chief  leaned  forward  in  his  characteristic  attitude,  and 
spoke,  a  long,  lean  brown  forefinger  emphasizing  the  sentences, 
his  quickened  glance  driving  them  home.  "  I  tell  you,  Leigh- 
bury,  that  some  of  those,  the  rottenest  corpses  among  'em,  will 
shed  their  grave-clothes,  and  rise  up  and  do  the  deeds  of  liv- 
ing men  before,  to  quote  Levison,  this  month  is  out.  Never 
take  it  for  granted  that  a  man  is  dead  until  the  grass  is  grow- 
ing high  over  his  bare  bones,  and  don't  make  too  sure  even 
then!  Because  to-day  I  saw  such  dry  bones  move — and  it's 
an  instructive  if  an  uncanny  sight." 

"  Whose  were  the  bones,  Colonel  ?  "  called  out  the  hand- 
some young  aide  at  the  bottom  of  the  table. 

The  host,  his  thin,  brown  fingers  busy  at  the  clipped 
moustache,  was  listening  to  the  Mayor  of  Gueldersdorp,  who 
sat  upon  his  right.  He  withdrew  his  attentive  eyes  from  that 
stalwart  sportsman's  broad,  ruddy  face  to  glance  smilingly  at 
the  fair,  handsome  face,  and  reply: 

"Whose?  Well,  up  to  the  present  they  have  belonged  to 
the  Dop  Doctor." 

"  That  man ! "    The  Mayor,  in  the  act  of  taking  another 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  129 

slice  of  the  roast,  looked  round  as  at  the  mention  of  a  name 
familiar,  shrugging  his  portly  shoulders.  "  Surely  you  know 
who  the  fellow  is,  Colonel?  He  drifted  up  here  from  Cape 
Colony  three  years  ago.  A  capable — confoundedly  capable 
man,  handicapped  by  a  severe  muscular  strain,"  the  Mayor's 
twinkling  eye  heralded  the  resurrection  of  an  ancient  jest — 
"sustained  in  lifting  a  cask  of  whisky — a  glass  at  a  time!" 

White  teeth  flashed  in  alert  tanned  faces.  The  school- 
boy laugh  went  round  the  table;  then  the  Babel  of  talk  went 
up  again.  Most  of  these  men  were  quite  young  .  .  .  their 
seniors  barely  middle-aged,  not  a  man  but  was  what  they 
themselves  would  have  termed  both  "  fit "  and  "  keen."  They 
had  wrought  for  many  days  in  the  erection  of  sand-bag  de- 
fences, in  the  digging  of  trenches,  in  the  drilling  of  Irregulars 
and  Volunteers  and  the  newly  enrolled  Town  Guard.  This 
was  the  pleasant  social  time  of  lull  before  the  storm,  and  they 
were  not  to  get  many  more  good  dinners  or  peaceful  nights 
in  bed  for  a  long  siege  to  come.  They  did  not  show  out- 
wardly the  tension  of  strung  nerves  that  waited,  as  the  whole 
world  waited,  for  the  echo  of  the  first  shot,  rattling  amongst 
the  low  hills  to  the  east.  Nor  did  it  occur  to  them  that  there 
was  anything  heroic  or  noticeably  dramatic  in  their  quiet  un- 
affected pose.  Gathered  together  upon  one  little  spot  of 
border  earth  destined  to  be  the  vital,  tragic,  throbbing  centre 
of  great  events  and  tremendous  issues,  actions  glorious,  and 
deeds  scarce  paralleled  upon  the  page  of  History,  let  us  look 
upon  them,  well-groomed,  well-bred,  easy-mannered,  cheery, 
demolishing  the  good  dishes  furnished  by  the  chef  of  Nixey's 
Hotel,  with  the  hungry  zest  of  schoolboys,  exchanging 
fusilades  of  not  very  brilliant  chaff. 

Scraps  of  scientific  and  technical  conversation  with  refer- 
ence to  telephonic  and  telegraphic  installations  between  outly- 
ing forts  and  headquarters,  electric  communication  with  mines, 
automatic  warming  apparatuses,  the  most  effective  methods  of 
constructing  bomb-proof  shelters,  the  comparative  merits  of 
Maxim  and  Nordenfeldt,  crossed  in  the  air  like  fragments  of 
bursting  projectiles,  impelled  by  those  admirable  engines  of 
destruction.  Mingled  with  reminiscences  of  cricket,  golf, 
tennis,  polo,  and  motoring,  then  in  its  infancy,  anecdotes  new 
and  old,  and  conjectures  as  to  what  the  fellows  at  home  were 
doing?  Hurlingham  and  Ranelagh,  Maidenhead  and  Henley, 
Eton  and  Oxford,  Sandhurst  and  Aldershot,  Piccadilly  in  the 
season,  Simla  in  the  heats,  the  results  for  the  Jockey  Club 


130  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

Stakes  and  the  Cesarewitch — all  of  these  they  talked,  with  rhina 
and  elephant  shooting  and  the  big  battues  of  pheasants  now 
taking  place  in  the  Home  Midlands  and  up  North.  But 
though  the  watch-fires  of  their  pickets  burned  upon  the  veld, 
and  though  the  Boer  lay  in  laager  over  the  Border,  of  him 
they  said  not  one  word.  That  reticence  upon  the  vital  point 
was  characteristically  English.  The  Gaul  would  have  wept, 
kneaded  his  manly  bosom,  and  alluded  to  his  mother ;  the 
Muscovite  would  have  wept  also,  referring  to  his  Little 
Father,  the  Czar;  the  Teuton  would  have  poured  forth  oceans 
of  sentiment  about  the  Fatherland;  the  Spaniard,  like  these, 
would  have  recognized  himself  as  a  warrior  upon  the  verge  of 
a  Homeric  struggle,  and  said  so  candidly;  the  hysterical  Amer- 
ican would  have  sung  "Hail,  Columbia!"  and  waved  pocket- 
handkerchief-sized  replicas  of  the  Star-Spangled  Banner  until 
too  exhausted  to  agitate  or  vocalize.  But  to  these  men  in- 
dulgence in  sentiment  was  "  bad  form,"  and  unrestrained 
patriotic  utterances  merely  "  gas."  The  Liberal,  the  Social- 
ist, and  the  pro-Boer  of  both  denominations,  classed  by  these 
men  under  the  heading,  Bounder,  gassed,  tainting  the  air  with 
an  odour  as  of  election  eggs  or  sulphuretted  hydrogen.  There- 
fore were  many  words  to  be  avoided. 

A  pose,  if  you  will,  an  affectation,  this  studied  avoidance  of 
all  appearance  of  enthusiasm  or  excitement,  showing  the  weak 
spot  in  the  armour  of  these  heroes,  henceforth  to  be  of  epic 
fame.  But  Man  is  essentially  a  weak  being.  It  is  only 
when  the  immortal  spirit  of  him  nerves  the  frame  of  perish- 
able muscle  that  he  rises  to  heights  that  are  sublime.  Such 
a  Promethean  spark  was  in  these  men,  that  when  the  Wind  of 
Death  blew  coldest  and  the  lead  and  iron  hail  beat  hardest, 
they  only  glowed  more  fiercely  radiant;  and  Want  and  Priva- 
tion, instead  of  sapping  the  energies  that  dwelt  in  them,  only 
seemed  to  make  them  more  strong — strong  to  endure,  strong 
to  foresee  plots  and  avert  perils  and  oppose  wit  to  cunning, 
and  strategy  to  deceit;  so  strong  that,  by  reason  of  their 
strength,  that  little  frontier  town  became  a  stronghold.  And 
yet  their  names,  other  than  those  I  have  given  them  in  this 
story,  shall  go  ringing  down  the  grooves  of  Time,  until  Time 
itself  shall  be  no  more. 

XX 

WHILE  they  ate  and  drank,  laughed,  and  chatted,  the  man 
who  was  to  be  their  comrade,  sharer  in  all  those  perils  and 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  131 

privations  yet  to  come,  was  tramping  up  and  down  the  bare 
boards  of  the  dingy  bedchamber  in  Harris  Street,  wrestling 
desperately  with  his  tragic  thirst. 

"  Why  did  he  come  and  look  at  me,  and  take  me  by  the 
hand,  and  revive  my  dulled  capacity  for  the  agony  that  has 
no  name?  Why  not  have  left  me  alone  in  this  living  death 
I  had  attained  ? "  he  cried.  "  When  first  I  took  to  the  in- 
fernal, blessed  liquor,  it  was  for  the  sake  of  relief  from  mental 
pain,  torture  unbearable.  Then  I  was  a  man,  only  unhappy. 
Now  I  am  lower  than  the  lowest  of  the  sensible,  cleanly, 
decent  brutes,  because  I  frantically  desire  the  drink  for  its  own 
sake,  and  my  senses  find  gratification  in  physical  degradation. 
O  God,  if  Thou  indeed  art,  and  I  must  perforce  return  to  live 
the  life  of  a  man  amongst  men,  help  to  burst  the  chains  that 
fetter  me !  Help  me  to  be  free !  " 

He  swallowed  a  great  draught  of  water,  and  stumbled  to 
the  unused  bed,  and  threw  himself  across  it,  raging  and  pant- 
ing, and  defiant  of  the  very  Power  he  invoked.  And  then, 
against  Hope,  sleep  came  to  him,  drowning  Memory  and 
obliterating  Thought,  and  his  fierce  physical  sufferings.  The 
lines  smoothed  out  of  the  heavy  forehead,  and  the  grim  mouth 
relaxed  in  the  smile  that  his  dead  mother  had  kissed,  coming 
in  with  the  shaded  candle  to  look  at  her  sleeping  boy. 

Just  as  the  Mayor  of  Gueldersdorp,  that  stalwart  York- 
shireman,  mighty  hunter  of  elephant,  rhino,  giraffe,  and  lion 
in  the  reckless  days  of  bloodshed  that  were  before  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  Game  Laws  into  South  Africa,  was  saying  to  the 
Colonel : 

"Irreclaimable,  sir.  Hopeless!  A  confirmed  drunkard, 
who  has  soaked  away  all  self-respect,  who  has  been  cautioned 
and  warned  and  fined  scores  of  times,  by  myself  and  other 
magistrates.  Dr.  De  Boursy-Williams,  our  leading  practi- 
tioner here,  has  taken  the  fellow  under  his  wing,  in  a  manner 
— 'bails  him  out  when  it  is  necessary,  and,  I  believe,  when  the 
man  is  sober  enough,  gives  him  work  in  his  dispensary  and 
allows  him  to  administer  the  anaesthetic  when  it's  a  question 
of  a  surgical  operation.  Wonder  he  trusts  him  for  my  part. 
Yet  De  Boursy-Williams  is  a  remarkably  successful  operator, 
and  hardly  ever  loses  a  case.  It  is  unfortunate  that  he  should 
have  been  called  away  to  Cape  Town  at  this  juncture." 

"  He  has  left  Dr.  Saxham  as  locum  tenens,  I  understand." 

The  Mayor  shrugged  his  portly  shoulders. 

"  As  to  his  qualifications,  there's  no  doubt.     Ranked 


132  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

at  one  time  as  a  London  West  End  specialist.  I  have  seen 
his  name  myself  in  a  British  Medical  Directory  of  some  years 
back  as  principal  visiting  surgeon  to  St.  Stephen's  and  the 
Ludgate  Hospital  for  Diseases  of  the  Chest.  Has  written 
books — scientific  works  that  are  quoted  now.  Must  have  been 
making  money  hand-over-hand  when  the  collapse  came.  The 
usual  thing — one  slip — and  a  Police-court  Inquiry  follows,  and 
down  goes  the  unlucky  wretch  with  the  Crown  on  top  of  him, 
and  all  the  Press  pack  yelping  for  soft  snaps.  True,  the  find- 
ing of  the  Jury  was  '  Not  Guilty,'  but  the  fact  of  there  having 
been  a  Prosecution  was  enough  to  ruin  Saxham  professionally. 
'Ah,  I  thought  you  must  have  heard  the  name." 

For  the  listener  had  moved  suddenly.  He  did  remember 
the  name  of  the  distinguished  London  practitioner  who  had 
been  discreditably  mixed  up  in  the  case  of  Mrs.  Bough,  the 
young,  miserable,  murdered  creature,  who  might  possibly  have 
been  the  daughter  of  Richard  Mildare.  Tough  and  cool  as 
his  tried  nerves  were,  he  shuddered  at  the  thought,  and  a 
sickly  heat  made  the  points  of  perspiration  stand  out  upon  his 
forehead.  But  the  Mayor,  good  man,  was  prosing  on: 

"  I  can't  say  the  facts  of  the  case  are  very  clear  in  my 
recollection,  but  I  have  a  file  of  the  Daily  Wire  at  home,  ex- 
tending over  six  years  back,  so  the  Criminal  Court  proceedings 
must  be  reported  in  it.  The  woman's  name,  I  do  remember, 
was  Bough.  As  regards  her  age,  now  you  ask  me  " — for  the 
Colonel  had  put  a  quick  question — "  I  fancy  she  must  have 
been  twenty-two  or  three.  Indeed,  I  am  almost  certain  that 
was  the  age  as  stated  by  the  Medical  Witness  in  the  Prosecu- 
tion. .  .  .  However,  I'll  go  into  the  reports  and  let  you  know 
for  certain." 

"Thank  you,  Mr.  Mayor.  And,  in  case  those  files  are 
jbombproof,  possibly  it  would  be  better  to  take  the  family  into 
The  reports  with  you — and  stop  until  times  improve." 

"Not  bad,  not  half  bad,  Colonel.  But  to  tell  the  truth, 
.1  wouldn't  miss  what  we  used  to  call  the  shindy,  and  those 
boys  of  yours  term  the  '  scrap  '  for  a  pile  of  Kruger  sovereigns. 
And — I  can  shoot  better  than  most  men,  if  I  am  in  the  sere 
and  yellow  sixties."  The  Mayor  was  slightly  ruffled;  the 
astute  touch  smoothed  him  down. 

"  My  money  is  on  you,  Mr.  Mayor,  when  it  comes  to 
stopping  a  Boer  with  a  rifle-bullet  at  four  hundred  yards. 
By  the  way,  I  have  a  little  confidence  to  repose  in  you. 
When  you  meet — as  I  am  confident  you  will  meet — Dr.  Sax- 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  133 

ham  at  the  Hospital  or  elsewhere,  metaphorically  clothed  and 
in  his  right  mind,  and  in  the  active  discharge  of  duties  which 
no  man,  judging  by  your  own  testimony,  is  better  fitted  to 
perform,  let  him  down  gently." 

The  Mayor,  conscious  of  civic  dignity  and  magisterial  warn- 
ings from  the  Bench  ignored,  swelled  obviously. 

"  My  dear  sir,  you  can't  let  the  Dop  Doctor  down  anyhow. 
He  is — just  about  as  low  as  a  man  can  get — short  of  being 
underground." 

"  Lend  him  a  hand  up — in  the  first  instance — by  forgetting 
that  confounded  nickname  which  I  was  clumsy  enough  to 
blurt  out  just  now.  Be  oblivious  of  what  he  is,  because  of 
what  he  has  been  in  the  Past,  and  will  be  in  the  Future.  For 
there  is  tremendous  stuff  in  the  fellow  even  now — or  I  am  a 
bad  judge  of  men." 

"  Colonel,  you're  a  thundering  bad  judge  of  drunkards,  from 
the  Bench's  point  of  view,  but  you'd  be  a  damned  good  special 
pleader  for  a  client  in  need  of  all  the  excuses  that  could  be 
trumped  up  for  him." 

"  We  all  have  something  we'd  like  to  have  an  excuse  for, 
Mr.  Mayor."  The  keen  hawk-eyes  held  a  twinkle  in  reserve. 
"  There  was  a  man  I  knew,  a  mighty  hunter  before  the  Lord 
— and  before  the  Game  Laws."  The  thin  brown  fingers  of 
the  veined  hard-palmed  hand  played  with  the  stem  of  a  wine- 
glass as  the  sentences  came  out,  crisp  and  pointed.  "  Well, 
this  is  the  story  of  a  mistake,  and  an  old  shikari  of  your  ex- 
perience can  find  even  more  excuses  for  it  than  I  can  .  .  .  but 
perhaps  I  bore  you?" 

"  On  the  contrary — on  the  contrary,  sir." 

The  fish  had  taken  the  bait,  remained  to  play  the  quivering 
captive  until  his  last  swirling  struggle  brought  him  within 
reach  of  the  skilful  dip  and  lift  of  the  angler's  net. 

"  It  was  about  four  years  ago,  in  the  Matsamba  District, 
Portuguese  East  Africa,  where  elephants  are  to  be  had,  and 
rhino,  particularly  the  Keitloa  variety  with  the  long  posterior 
horn,  and  a  bad  habit  of  charging  the  man  behind  the  600 
bore.  .  .  ." 

Mr.  Mayor's  capacious  white  waistcoat  was  agitated  by  a 
subterranean  chuckle.  His  double  chin  shook  merrily.  "A 
side  shot  through  the  head — solid  bullet — is  the  best  cure  for 
that,  Colonel.  But  you  had  to  wait  in  the  high  swamp-grass 
and  keep  the  wind  of  him,  and  make  sure  of  your  aim." 

"  Quite  so.     This  man,  from  the  shelter  of  a  rock,  waited 


134  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

to  make  sure  of  his  aim.  The  rhino  was  feeding  tsetse  as  he 
dozed  in  the  high  swamp-grass.  His  biggest  horn  showed,  and 
a  bit  of  his  shiny  black  skin.  One  j'orward  lunge  of  the  big 
head — and  Nimrod  could  get  that  side-shot.  So  he  waited, 
patience  being,  as  we  know,  a  virtue  to  be  cultivated  by  the 
successful  stalker  of  big  game " 

The  Mayor,  boiled  prawn-pink  to  the  receding  boundary- 
line  of  his  upright  white  hair,  coughed  awkwardly. 

"  So  the  man  waited  two  hours.  Then  the  unclad  and 
obese  native  lady,  carrying  a  long  pointed  grass  basket  on 
her  back,  who  had  squatted  down  in  the  high  grass  to  smoke 
a  pipe  and  administer  maternal  refreshment  to  a  shiny  black 
piccanni  of  three  or  four !  " 

The  Mayor,  purple  now,  burst  out: 

"  Got  up  and  went  on !  And,  if  these  boys  of  yours  get 
wind  of  that  story,  I  shall  be  roasted  within  an  inch  of  my 
life.  Whoever  told  you?  In  the  Lord's  name,  don't  give 
me  away !  " 

The  keen  eyes  were  dancing  now — the  big  fish  had  fairly 
got  the  gaff. 

"  I  promise,  Mr.  Mayor,  upon  the  understanding  that  you 
don't  give  away  my  man.  .  .  .  It's  a  compact?  Thanks 
tremendously!  And  here  comes  the  Manager  to  be  con- 
gratulated upon  the  haunch.  I  never  tasted  better  venison, 
Mr.  Nixey,  though,  as  you  say,  this  is  rather  far  North  for 
koodoo.  And  the  quail  were  beyond  praise.  Waiter,  a  glass 
for  Mr.  Nixey.  .  .  .  Port — and  we're  going  to  ask  you  to 
join  us  in  drinking  a  toast.  .  .  ." 

The  beautiful,  flushed  boy  rose  solemnly,  glass  in  hand. 
About  the  long  board,  adorned  with  a  fine  epergne  full  of 
tuberose,  rose,  and  jasmine,  spread  with  Nixey's  best  plate  and 
linen,  crystal,  and  dishes  of  Staffordshire  china  piled  with 
grapes  and  mandarins  and  loquats,  the  fruit  of  October. 
About  the  table  there  was  a  great  uprising  of  those  phlegmatic, 
self-contained  Britons.  Straight  as  the  flames  of  unblown 
torches,  they  burned  about  the  table.  With  a  simultaneous 
movement  all  those  eyes  of  varied  colours  turned  to  the  lean 
brown  face  of  the  quiet  man  at  the  table-head  as  the  sweet 
young  clarion  rung  out: 

"  Gentlemen — the  Queen !  " 

The  brimming  glasses  rose  high — one  crystal  wave  with  the 
crimson  blood  in  it.  The  English  and  the  sharper  Colonial 
voices  answered  together  with  a  crash.  As  of  the  wave  break- 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  135 

ing  on  white  cliffs  northwards,  spreading  to  the  steps  of  the 
Throne  where   She  sate,   bowed  with  great  griefs  and   great 
joys  and  great  triumphs  and  glories,  and  white-haired  with  the 
full  burden  of  her  venerable  years: 
"The  Queen!" 

XXI 

THEY  lingered  not  long  over  wine  and  cigars.  Lady  Hannah 
Wrynche,  who  was  entertaining  what  she  disdainfully  termed  a 
"  hen  party "  in  her  private  rooms  at  Nixey's,  vacated  in  her 
honour  by  her  landlord's  wife — expected  them  to  coffee. 
Much  to  the  relief  of  the  military  authorities  at  Cape  Town, 
Milady,  most  erratic  of  Society  meteors,  had  quitted  that 
centre  of  painstaking  official  misinformation,  for  the  throbbing 
spot  of  debatable  land  whence  events  might  be  gathered  as  they 
sprang.  Shooting  across  the  orbit  of  the  reddening,  low-hang- 
ing War-planet,  she  had  descended  upon  Nixey's  in  a  shower 
of  baggage-trunks,  fox-terriers,  and  interrogations.  For  one 
thing,  she  explained  to  everybody,  she  had  undertaken  to 
supply  a  London  Daily  with  a  series  of  Letters,  written  from 
the  Seat  of  Hostilities,  and  for  another,  Bingo  was  on  the 
Staff,  and  it  would  be  so  nice  for  him,  poor  dear,  to  have  his 
wife  near  him  in  case  those  wretches  .  .  .  was  "  chipped  "  the 
proper  technical  term,  or  "potted"?  The  Letters  were  in- 
tended to  be  the  real  thing — racy  of  the  soil,  don't  you  know, 
and  full  of  "  go  "  and  atmosphere.  Let  it  be  said  here  that 
they  achieved  raciness.  The  London  print  in  which  they  ap- 
peared came  to  be  christened  by  the  scoffer  and  the  incredulous 
the  Daily  Whale — it  swallowed  and  disgorged  so  many  of  the 
Jonahs  rejected  by  other  editors.  But  the  profits  increased, 
and  the  Proprietors  could  afford  to  smile  at  Envy. 

Food  for  the  insatiable  gold  fountain-pen  of  our  in- 
defatigable Lady  Correspondent,  stooping  to  occupy  the  in- 
defatigable gold  fountain-pen  from  whence  she  derived  her 
literary  pseudonym,  in  recording  merest  gossip,  in  the  absence 
of  the  longed-for  opportunity  to  prove  herself  the  equal,  if  not 
the  superior,  of  Dora  Corr.  Dora  is  the  woman  Lady  Hannah 
respects  and  envies  above  all  others.  Colonial  Editor  to  The 
Thunderbolt,  War  Correspondent,  financial  expert,  political 
leader-writer,  and  diplomatic  go-between,  when  Cabinet  Min- 
isters and  Empire-builders  would  arrive  at  understanding  the 
serfdom  of  sex,  the  trammels  of  the  petticoat  weigh  as  lightly 


136  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

upon  this  thrice  fortunate  spinster  as  though  it  were  no  draw- 
back to  be  a  daughter  of  Eve. 

Oh,  prayed  Lady  Hannah,  for  the  chance  of  proving  that 
another  woman  can  equal  this  brilliant  feminine  Phoenix! 
Meanwhile  her  bright  eyes  and  quick  sense  of  humour  took 
note  of  the  toilettes  of  some  of  her  guests,  wives  and  daughters 
of  notable  citizens  who  had  not  hurried  South  at  the  first 
mutterings  of  the  storm.  The  purple  satin  worn  by  the 
Mayoress  tickled  her  no  less  than  the  unfeigned  horror  of  its 
wearer  when  offered  from  her  hostess's  chatelaine-case  the 
choicest  of  Sobranies.  Lady  Hannah's  laugh  was  the  rattling 
of  a  mischievous  boy's  stick  across  his  sister's  piano-wires,  and 
the  metallic  jangle  preceded  her  assurance  that  everybody  did 
it — all  women  in  Society,  at  least,  and  you  were  thought  odd 
if  you  didn't.  After  dinner,  in  the  most  exclusive  houses, 
the  most  rigid  of  hostesses  invariably  allowed  her  women  guests 
to  smoke.  They  knew  people  worth  having  wouldn't  come  if 
they  weren't  allowed  to  smoke. 

"  Never  beneath  my  roof !  "  gasped  the  shocked  and  scandal- 
ized wearer  of  the  purple  splendours  demanded  of  the  wife 
of  a  Chief  Magistrate.  "Never  at  my  table!"  Of  course, 
the  agitated  Mayoress  went  on  to  say,  one  had  heard  of  the 
doings  of  the  Smart  Set.  But  one  had  hoped  it  wasn't  true, 
or,  at  least,  had  been  very  much  exaggerated  by  "  writing- 
people."  The  Mayoress,  though  a  mild  woman,  had  her 
sting. 

Lady  Hannah,  immensely  tickled  to  find  the  morals  of  Bays- 
water  rampant,  as  she  afterwards  expressed  it,  in  the  centre 
of  South  Africa,  cackled  as  she  helped  herself  to  a  second 
liqueur-glass  of  Nixey's  excellent  apricot-brandy.  Small,  thin, 
restless,  she  presented  a  parched  appearance,  with  bright,  round, 
beady  eyes  continually  roving  in  search  of  information  from 
the  shadow  of  a  crumpled  Pompadour  transformation,  for 
those  horrors  had  recently  become  fashionable,  and  the  whole 
world  of  women  were  vying  with  one  another  in  the  simulation 
of  the  criminal  type  of  skull,  with  the  Bulge  Dolichocephalic. 

"  My  dear  lady,  tobacco-ash  is  an  excellent  thing  for  killing 
moth  in  carpets,  and  Time,  when  one  is  compelled  to  bestow 
it  upon  dull  people;  and  a  perfectly  healthy,  Nonconformist 
conscience  must  be  a  comfortable  lodger.  But  as  regards  the 
sacred  roof,  and  the  defended  table,  it's  a  question  how  long 
both  British  institutions  remain  intact,  with  those  big  guns 
getting  into  position  round  us.  .  .  ."  She  waved  her  small 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  137 

hand,  its  nails  superbly  ignored,  its  sun-cracks  neglected,  its 
load  of  South  African  diamonds  coruscating  magnificently  in 
the  light  of  Nixey's  electric  bulbs,  and  shrugged  her  thin, 
vivacious  shoulders. 

The  entrance  of  the  gentlemen  relieved  the  situation.  Lady 
Hannah  jumped  up  and  rushed  at  the  Colonel.  "As  If  she 
meant  to  eat  the  man,"  the  Mayoress  said  afterwards,  in  the 
shadow  of  that  threatened  roof.  But,  impervious  to  the  en- 
treaty of  the  bright  black  eyes  and  the  glittering  hand  that 
beckoned  with  the  urgent  fan,  he  bowed,  smiled,  said  a  few 
pleasant  words  to  his  hostess,  and  walked  "  straight  across  " — 
as  the  Mayoress  afterwards  confided  to  the  Mayor — to  take  a 
seat  beside  the  large,  placid,  matronly  figure  palpitating  in 
purple  satin  on  an  imported  Maple  sofa. 

Pleased  and  flattered,  she  made  room  for  him,  while  Lady 
Hannah  became  the  gossip-centre  of  a  knot  of  Mess-uni- 
forms. .  .  . 

"  Both  well  ?  "  It  would  have  been  unlike  him  not  to  have 
remembered  that  he  had  seen  children  at  her  house.  "  Hammy 
and  Berta  made  great  friends  with  me  the  other  day.  .  .  . 
Tell  them  I  haven't  forgotten  the  promise  to  rummage  up 
some  odd  native  toys  I  picked  up  in  Rhodesia — made  of  mud 
and  feathers  and  bits  of  fur  and  queerly-shaped  seed-pods — the 
most  enchanting  collection  of  birds  and  beasts  that  ever  came 
out  of  the  Ark.  And  the  Matabele  have  a  legend  about  a 
big  flood  and  a  wise  old  man  who  built  a  house  of  reeds  and 
skins  that  floated.  .  .  .  The  North  American  Indians  will 
tell  you  that  it  was  a  big  Medicinal  Canoe,  and  amongst  the 
tribes  of  the  Nilghiri  Hills  you  find  exactly  the  same  story 
that  the  Chaldean  scribes  wrote  on  their  tablets  of  clay.  To- 
day in  Eastern  Kurdistan  they'll  point  you  out  the  peak  on 
which  the  Ark  grounded.  The  Armenians  hold  it  was  Ararat. 
.  .  .  It's  curious  how  the  root-legend  crops  up  every- 
where. .  .  ." 

"  But  of  course  it  must."  Her  good,  calm  eyes  showed 
surprise,  and  her  broad,  white,  matronly  bosom  was  a  little 
fluttered.  "  Doesn't  the  Bible  teach  us  that  the  Deluge  cov- 
ered the  whole  earth?  Even  Hammy  and  Berta  can  tell  you 
the  whole  story  about  Noah,  and  the  raven — and  the  dove." 

He  smoothed  his  moustache  with  a  palm  that  wiped  the 
smile  out. 

"  I  must  get  them  to  tell  it  me  one  of  these  days."  The 
twinkle  in  his  eye  was  not  to  be  repressed.  "  It  would  save 


138  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

such  a  deal  of  trouble  to  believe  there  was  only  one  Noah, 
and  only  one  Ark,  don't  you  know?" 

Her  motherly  cheek  glowed: 

"  My  children  shall  never  believe  anything  else !  " 

He  was  grave  and  sympathetic,  though  a  muscle  in  his  thin 
cheek  twitched. 

"  I  believe  the  Ark  of  our  happy  childish  memories  is  built, 
if  not  of  gopher-wood,  at  least  upon  the  lines  laid  down  in 
Scripture.  Has  Hammy  ever  tried  to  get  his  to  float?  Mine 
invariably  used  to  sink — straight  to  the  bottom  of  the  bath. 
Perhaps  that  continually-recurrent  catastrophe  had  something 
to  do  with  the  sapping  of  my  infant  faith,  or  the  establish- 
ment of  a  sinking-fund  of  doubt  regarding  the  veracity  of  the 
Noachian  reporter?" 

She  leaned  towards  him,  her  placid  grey  eyes  dilating  with 
pity  for  this  man. 

"  You  ought  to  come  and  sit  under  our  Minister,  Mr. 
Oddris,  on  Sundays.  Pray  do.  He  would  convince  you  if 
anybody  could.  Such  an  eloquent,  able,  well-informed  man, 
and  so  truly  pious  and  brave." 

The  laugh  perforce  escaped  him.  The  convincing  Apostle 
Oddris  had  called  on  him  at  official  headquarters  that  day,  to 
inquire  whether,  as  his  wife  and  children  were  going  to  the 
Women's  Laager,  his  place  as  a  Minister  was  not  by  their 
side?  Being  informed  that  able-bodied  male  beings  were  not 
included  in  the  list  of  the  defenceless,  he  had  become  im- 
portunate in  the  matter  of  at  least  a  bombproof  shelter  to  be 
erected  in  his  back-yard. 

"  I  had  rather  sit  under  Hammy  and  hear  about  Noah,  with 
Berta  on  the  other  knee." 

Her  heart  went  out  wholly  to  him.  ..."  Out  of  the 
mouths  of  babes."  .  .  .  Wasn't  that  one  of  the  texts  with 
Promise?  .  .  . 

"You  love  children?" 

"Bless  the  little  beggars!"  he  said  heartily,  "they're  the 
jolliest  company  in  the  world." 

She  leaned  towards  him,  palpitating  between  her  shyness  of 
the  Commander  of  the  Garrison  and  her  womanly  curiosity 
to  know  more  about  the  man. 

"  Hammond — the  Mayor  has  told  me — I  hope  it  is  not  in- 
discreet te  mention  it — that  the  first  thing  you  did,  on  joining 
your  regiment  in  India  as  a  young  subaltern,  was  to  gather 
all  the  European  children  '.n  cantonments  together  and  march 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  139 

them  through  the  place,  playing  '  The  Girl  I  Left  Behind  Me  ' 
on  the  flute." 

His  brow  grew  black  as  thunder.  The  utterance  came, 
terse  and  sharp. 

"  Ma'am,  you  have  been  gravely  misinformed." 

She  jumped  in  terror. 

"  Oh !  .  .  .  Can  it  be  ?  ...  Colonel,  I  do  so  beg  you  to 
forgive  me.  Let  me  assure  you  that  neither  the  Mayor  nor 
myself  will  ever  again  repeat  the  story." 

||  Ma'am,  if  you  do  .  .   ." 

"  But  I  promise,  never  .  .  ." 

"  Ma'am,  if  you  never  do,  at  least  remember  that  the  flute 
was  an  ocarina." 

He  left  the  good  soul  in  an  ecstasy  of  giggles,  and  crossed  to 
Lady  Hannah.  She  welcomed  him  with  a  glitter  of  eyes  and 
teeth  and  discovered  the  reserve-chair  that  had  been  covered 
by  her  somewhat  fatigued  and  wilted  draperies  of  maize  Lib- 
erty-silk, veiled  with  black  Maltese  lace. 

"  What  it  is  to  be  a  man  of  tact !  You've  made  that  purple 
creature  perfectly  happy.  Don't  say  you're  going  to  be  less 
kind  to  another  woman !  " 

She  tapped  with  a  reproachful  fan  the  scarlet  sleeve  of  his 
thin  serge  mess-jacket,  her  appraising  eyes  busy  with  the  minia- 
ture medals  and  star  worn  on  the  dark  green  roll-collar.  If 
a  clever  woman  could  be  the  confidante  of  a  Cabinet  Minister, 
the  post  of  right-hand  to  the  Officer  Commanding  H.M. 
Forces  in  Gueldersdorp  might  be  won.  And  then  the  world 
would  know  what  Hannah  Wrynche  was  born  for.  What 
was  he  saying? 

"  I  never  warn  my  victims  beforehand." 

"  Sphinx !  and  I  hoped  to  find  you  in  the  relenting  mood !  " 

"  If  possible,  madam,  my  granite  bosom  is  more  unyielding 
than  on  the  last  occasion  when  .  .  ." 

"  Do  go  on !  "  said  the  fan. 

"  When  you  tried  to  tap  it." 

"You're  all  alike."  She  sighed.  "That  is,  you  give  the 
keynote,  and  the  others  take  up  the  tune.  Even  Bingo — 
Bingo,  whom  I  firmly  believed  incapable  of  keeping  a  secret 
in  which  his  dearest  interests  were  concerned  longer  than  ten 
minutes — Bingo  has  sprung  a  surprise  on  me.  I  shall  end  by 
falling  in  love  with  my  own  husband — such  an  indecent  thing 
to  do  after  seven  years  of  married  life!  " 

"  Fortunately,  the  scene  of  your  lapse  from  the  crooked  path 


i4o  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

of  custom  Is  distant  from  the  West  End  of  London  more  than 
six  thousand  miles.  And  you  can  rely  upon  me  for  secrecy." 

"  Ah,  that !  ...  If  only  you  did  leak  a  little  information 
now  and  then."  Her  eyebrows  went  up  to  the  dry  fringe  of 
her  Pompadour  transformation.  "  For  the  sake  of  the  thirst- 
ing public  at  home,  to  say  nothing  of  my  reputation  as  a 
Special  Correspondent — • — " 

"  Drive  over  and  call  on  General  Bronnckers  at  Kloof 
Laager,  Geitfontein,  on  the  Border,  early  to-morrow.  Perhaps 
he  would  oblige  you  with  matter  for  a  paragraph,  and  for- 
ward the  cable  by  private  wire." 

Her  birdlike  eyes  were  bright  on  him. 

"  I  would  go  if  I  thought  I  could  get  anything  by  going. 
Special  information — with  reference  to  a  Plan  of  Attack.  Oh ! 
if  you  knew  how  I'm  dying  to  be  really  under  fire.  To  hear 
bullets  zip-zip — isn't  that  the  sound? — as  they  strike  the 
ground  or  walls,  and  shells  scream  overhead !  " 

She  clasped  her  dry  little  jewelled  hands  in  affected  ecstasy. 
His  eyes  were  stern,  and  the  lines  about  his  mouth  deepened. 

"  Pray  to-night  that  you  may  never  hear  those  sounds  you 
speak  of !  " 

She  struck  an  exaggerated  attitude  of  horrified  consterna- 
tion. 

"But  no!     Why  am  I  here?" 

"The  Lord  only  knows.  I've  seen  a  hen  peck  at  a  lump  of 
dynamite.  .  .  ." 

"  Ah,  you  never  will  take  me  seriously.  But  own  in  your 
secret  heart  you're  as  much  afraid  as  I  am  that  a  Relieving 

Column  will  be  sent  down  from Do  tell  me  again  where 

Grumer  is  with  the  Brigade?  Uli,  in  Upper  Rhodesia — 
thanks!  Well,  Grumer  is  quite  a  near  friend  of  Bingo's,  and 
an  old  flame  of  mine.  But — to  burst  our  lovely  peacock 
bubble  of  Siege  and  let  the  whole  situation  down,  sans  coup 
ferir,  into  muddy  commonplace — may  Grumer  never  come !  " 
She  held  up  her  coffee-cup,  and  drank  the  toast! 

"  Only  for  the  women  and  children  here,"  he  said,  and 
his  thin  nostrils  moved  to  the  measure  of  his  quickened  breath- 
ing, and  a  hot  spark  glowed  in  his  keen  eyes,  "  I'd  have  joined 
you  in  that.  But  under  the  present  circumstances — I'd  give 
five  years  of  life — and  I  love  life! — if  our  lookouts  could  pick 
up  Grumer's  Advance  by  the  time  grey  dawn  creeps  up  the 
east  again." 

She  was  incredulous* . 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  141 

"You,  who  said  when  you  got  orders  to  sail  for  South 
Africa — I  have  it  on  the  authority  of  your  Ascot  hostess — '  I 
hope  they'll  give  me  a  warm  corner ' ! " 

"  I  did  say — just  that.     And  I  meant  it." 

His  lips  pursed  in  a  soundless  whistle.     She  went  on: 

"  I've  been  poking  round.  Seen  your  preparations.  The 
little  old  forts,  put  into  such  repair!  and  the  armoured  train, 
with  a  Maxim  and  a  Nordenfeldt,  standing  in  the  railway 
siding,  ready  for  business.  And  the  earthworks!  And  the 
shelters  panelled  and  roofed  with  corrugated  iron.  And  your 
bomb-proof  Headquarter  Bureau,  the  iron  skull  that's  to  hold 
the  working  brain  of  the  place  .  .  .  with  underground  tele- 
graphic and  telephonic  communications  with  all  the  forts  and 
outposts.  It's  colossal!  A  masterpiece  of  cool,  deadly,  lethal 
forethought.  ...  I  thought  I  was  incapable  of  the  delicious 
shiver  of  expectation  that  the  schoolboy  enjoys,  sitting  in  the 
stalls  of  dear  Old  Drury,  waiting  for  the  curtain  to  rise  on 
the  first  act  of  the  Autumn  Drama.  But  you've  given  it  to 
me — you  and  our  friends  out  there !  "  She  waved  the  dry 
little  glittering  hand.  "  And  you  can  talk  in  cold  blood  of 
marching  out — and  leaving  the  hive — and  all  the  honey  you 
might  have  had  out  of  it.  Sweet  danger,  perilous  sport,  the 
great  Game  of  War — played  as  a  man  like  you  knows  how  to 
play  it  in  this  little  sandy  world-arena,  with  all  the  Powers 
and  Dominions  looking  on.  Preserve  us!  Oh,  to  be  in  your 
shoes  this  minute,  if  only  for  one  week!  But  as  I  can't  it's 
you  I  hope  to  »see  riding  the  whirlwind  and  directing  the 
storm.  Not  only  for  my  own  sake  and  the  wretched  paper's — • 
though,  mind  you,  I  don't  pretend  to  be  anything  but  a  mer- 
cenary, calculating  worldly  creature  .  .  ." 

His  eyes  were  very  kind. 

"Bingo  knows  better!" 

Her  laugh  did  not  jangle  this  time. 

"  Lady  Grasby,  the  vitriol-tongued  water-nymph,  as  some- 
body clever  once  called  her,  said  that  if  Bingo  got  killed  by 
any  chance,  I  should  sit  down  and  write  a  gossipy  descriptive 
article,  dealing  with  his  military  career,  married  life,  and  last 
moments,  before  I  ordered  my  widow's-weepers.  Horrible 
things!  They've  come  in  again,  too!  Talking  of  gossip, 
which  I  know  you  only  pretend  to  despise,  I  found  the  son  of 
a  mutual  acquaintance  dying  in  the  Hospital  here.  You  know 
the  Bishop  of  H  .  .  .?" 

"  His  eldest  son,  Major  Fraithorn,  was  my  senior  when  I 


142  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

was  Assistant  Military  Secretary  in   India  in   '93.     And  the 
Bishop  is  quite  a  dear  crony  of  my  mother's." 

"  The  Bishop,"  she  said,  "  was  always  a  person  of  excellent 
good  taste — except  when  he  cut  off  his  second  son,  Julius, 
with  two  hundred  a  year  for  turning  Anglican,  wearing  a 
soft  hat  and  Roman  collars,  and  joining  the  staff  at  that 
clerical  poster  shop  in  Cavendish  Street  West  as  Junior 
Curate." 

"  St.  Margaret's.     I  know  the  church.     Often  go  there  when 
I'm  at  home." 

"  It's  the  Halfway  House  to  Rome,  according  to  the  Bishop, 
who  won't  be  content  with  running  at  every  red  rag  of  Ritual- 
ism that  flutters  in  his  own  diocese,  but  keeps  up  the  character 
of  belligerent  Broad  Churchman  by  writing  pamphlets  and  ask- 
ing questions  in  the  House  of  Lords  with  reference  to  affairs 
which  are  the  business  of  other  people.  According  to  him,  the 
red  cassocks  of  the  acolytes  at  St.  Margaret's  are  cut  out  of 
the  very  skirts  of  the  Woman  of  Babylon,  and  Father  Turney 
and  his  curates — they're  all  Fathers  there,  and  celibates  of 
choice — are  wolves  in  wool,  and  Mephistophelean  plotters 
against  the  liberties  of  the  Church.  Punch  published  a 
cartoon  of  the  Bishop  shutting  his  eyes  and  charging  at  a  wind- 
mill in  a  cope  and  chasuble.  He  is  sending  out  a  string  of 
Protestant-Church  Integrity  vans  all  over  England,  Scotland, 
and  Wales  this  season,  with  acetylene-lantern  pictures  from 
Foxe's  '  Book  of  Martyrs,'  and  a  lecturer  to  point  the  morals 
and  adorn  the  tales.  .  .  .  But  if  he  could  see  his  Mary's  boy 
to-day,  he'd  put  up  with  any  amount  of  long-tailed  coats  and 
Roman  collars,  and  incense  and  altar  genuflections  wouldn't 
count  for  a  tikkie.  Oh !  it's  been  a  sore  with  me  this  many  a 
year,  but  when  I  saw  him  to-day  I  said  '  Thank  God  I  never 
had  a  child ! '  Because  to  have  seen  a  boy  or  girl  grow  up  and 
wither  away  as  that  beautiful  young  fellow  is  withering  is  a 
thing  that  a  mother  must  shudder  to  look  back  upon  even  when 
she  has  found  her  lost  one  again  in  Heaven." 

There  was  genuine  feeling  in  her  voice,  usually  loud,  harsh, 
and  tuneless.  The  bright  black  beadles  had  a  gleam  as  of 
tears.  He  turned  to  her  with  sympathetic  interest. 

"  He  ought  to  be  obliged  to  you  for  rinding  this  out.  No 
hint  of  it  had  reached  me.  I  am  due  at  the  Hospital  in  the 
morning,  and  we'll  see  if  something  can't  be  done." 

She  shook  her  head. 

"  It's  a  case  of  tuberculous  lung-disease.     He  developed  it  in 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  143 

the  Clergy  House  at  St.  Margaret's,  and  made  light  of  it, 
supposing  or  pretending  that  the  cough  and  wasting  and  diffi- 
culty of  breathing  meant  bronchial  trouble,  the  result  of  Lon- 
don fogs.  These  young  people  who  don't  value  Life — glorious 
gift  that  it  is!  When  he  broke  down  utterly,  at  the  end  of 
a  rampant  campaign  against  Intemperance — he  wouldn't  be 
the  Bishop's  son  if  he  didn't  gall  the  withers  of  some  hobby- 
horse  or  other — the  doctors  agreed  there  was  nothing  for  him 
but  South  Africa." 

He  frowned,  knowing  how  many  sufferers  had  died  of  that 
lethal  prescription.  She  went  on: 

"  So  he  came  out — alone — upon  the  advice  of  the  well-in- 
tentioned wiseacres,  knowing  nothing  of  the  country,  to  live 
on  his  two  hundred  a  year  until  the  end.  And  the  end  is 
coming — in  Gueldersdorp  Hospital — with  giant  strides."  She 
blinked.  "They've  isolated  him  in  a  small  detached  ward. 
He  has  a  kind  friend  in  the  Matron,  and  the  chart-nurse  is  in 
love  with  him,  unless  I'm  mistaken  in  the  symptoms  of  the 
complaint.  And  he  looks  like  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  wedded  to 
Death  instead  of  Poverty — and  coughs — fit  to  tear  your  heart. 
B'rrh!"  she  shuddered. 

He  repeated :  "  I'll  see  what  can  be  done  to-morrow. 
These  cases  are  deceptive.  There  may  be  a  gleam  of 
hope." 

"  There  is  one  doubt  about  the  case  which  might  infer  a 
hope.  I  don't  know  what  discoveries  the  London  doctors 
made,  but  I  wormed  out  of  the  chart-nurse,  who  plainly  adores 
him,  that  the  doctors  in  Gueldersdorp  can't  scare  up  a  bacillus 
for  the  life  of  them." 

His  eyes  lightened  in  voluntary  admiration,  though  his  tone 
was  jesting. 

"You're  thrown  away  on  mere  journalism.  Criminal  In- 
vestigation or  Secret  Intelligence  would  offer  wider  fields  for 
your  abilities." 

"Wait!"  she  said,  her  beady  eyes  black  diamonds.  "I 
shall  hope  to  prove  one  day  that  an  English  woman-journalist 
can  be  as  useful  as  a  Boer  spy  in  the  matter  of  useful  informa- 
tion. Why,  why  am  I  not  a  man  ?  You  only  don't  trust  me 
because  I  am  a  woman." 

He  had  touched  the  rankling  point  in  her  ambition.  He 
applied  balm  as  he  knew  how. 

11  Your  being  a  woman  may  have  made  all  the  difference — 
for  Fraithorn.  I  shall  set  Taggart  of  the  R.A.M.C.  at  him 


144  ONE    BRAVER   THING 

to-morrow;  the  Major's  a  bit  of  a  crack  at  pulmonary  cases. 
And  he  shall  consult  with  Saxham,  and " 

"  Saxham."  Her  eyebrows  were  knitted.  "  I  thought  I 
knew  the  names  of  your  Medical  Staff  men.  But  I  can't  re- 
call a  Saxham." 

"  This  Saxham  is  Civilian — and  rather  a  big  pot — M.D., 
F.R.C.S.,  and  lots  more.  We're  lucky  to  have  got  him." 

She  stiffened,  scenting  the  paragraph. 

"  Can  it  be  that  you  mean  the  Doctor  Saxham  of  the  Old 
Bailey  Case?" 

'  The  Jury  acquitted,  let  me  remind  you." 

"  I  believe  so,"  she  said ;  "  but — he  vanished  afterwards.  I 
think  an  innocent  man  would  have  stopped  and  faced  the 
music,  and  not  beat  a  retreat  with  the  Wedding  March  almost 
sounding  in  his  ears.  But — who  knows?  You  know  his 
brother,  Captain  Saxham,  of  the  — th  Dragoons?  It  was  he 
who  stepped  into  the  matrimonial  breach,  and  married  the 
young  woman." 

'  The  young  woman  ?  " 

"  His  brother's  fiancee — an  heiress  of  the  Dorsetshire  Lee- 
Haileys,  and  rather  a  pretty-faced,  silly  person,  with  a  penchant 
for  French  novels  and  sulphonal  tabloids.  I  always  shall  be- 
lieve that  she  liked  the  handsome  Dragoon  best,  and  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  Doctor's  being — under  the  cloud  of  acquittal 
by  a  British  Jury,  to  give  him  what  the  dear  Irish  call  '  the 
back  of  her  hand.'  " 

11  The  better  luck  for  him !  " 

"  It  was  mere  instinct  to  let  go  when  the  man  was  dragging 
them  both  under  water,"  she  asserted. 

"  A  Newfoundland  bitch  would  have  risen  above  it." 

"  You  hit  back  quick  and  hard." 

"I'm  a  tennis-player  and  a  polo-player  and  a  cricketer." 

"What  game  is  there  that  you  don't  play?" 

"  I  could  tell  you  of  one  or  two.  .  .  .  But  I  must  really 
go  and  speak  to  some  of  these  ladies.  One  of  them  is  an  old 
friend." 

"  I  know  who  you  mean.  If  I  hadn't,  her  glare  of  envy 
would  have  enlightened  me.  Did  I  tell  you  that  /  encountered 
an  old  friend — or,  at  least,  a  friend  of  old — at  the  Hospital 
yesterday?" 

"You  mean  poor  Fraithorn?" 

"  Not  at  all.  I'm  only  a  friend  of  his  mother.  I  had  only 
heard  of  the  boy,  not  met  him,  until  I  tumbled  over  him  here. 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  145 

But  this  face — looking  at  me  from  a  starched  white  gmmpe 
and  floating  black  veil — belonged  to  my  Past  in  several  ways." 

He  showed  interest. 

"Your  friend  is  a  nun?  At  the  Convent  here?  How  did 
you  come  across  her?  " 

"  She  came  in  to  see  the  Bishop's  son — while  I  was  with 
him.  It  seems  that,  judging  by  the  poor  dear  boy's  religious 
medals,  and  crucifixes,  and  crossings,  and  other  contraptions, 
the  Matron  had  got  him  on  the  books  as  a  Roman  Catholic. 
And,  consequently,  when  my  friend  looked  in  to  visit  a  day- 
scholar  who  was  to  be  operated  on  for  adenoids — I've  no  idea 
what  they  are,  but  a  thing  with  a  name  like  that  would  natur- 
ally have  to  be  cut  out  of  one — she  was  told  of  this  poor 
fellow,  and  has  shed  the  light  of  her  countenance  on  him  oc- 
casionally since.  Yesterday  was  one  of  the  occasions,  and 
Heavens!  what  a  countenance  it  is  even  now!  What  a 
voice,  what  eyes,  what  a  manner!  I  believed  I  gushed  a  bit. 
.  .  .  She  met  me  as  though  we'd  only  parted  last  week.  Nuns 
are  wonderful  creatures :  she's  unique,  even  as  a  nun." 

He  said :  "  I  believe  I  had  the  honour  of  meeting  the  lady 
of  whom  you  speak  when  I  called  at  the  Convent  yesterday 
afternoon.  A  remarkable,  noble,  and  most  interesting  per- 
sonality." 

Lady  Hannah  nodded.  "  All  that.  But  you  ought  to  have 
seen  her  at  eighteen.  We  were  at  the  High-School,  Kensing- 
ton, together,  I  a  brat  of  ten  in  the  Third  Form,  she  a  Head 
Girl,  cramming  for  Girton.  She  carried  everything  before  her 
there,  and  emerged  with  a  B.A.  Degree  Certificate  in  the  days 
when  it  was  thought  hardly  proper  for  a  woman  to  go  about 
with  such  a  thing  tacked  to  her  tails.  And  all  the  students 
idolized  her,  and  the  male  lecturers  worshipped  the  ground  she 
trod.  And  when  she  was  presented — what  a  sensation !  They 
called  her  the  '  Irish  Rose,'  and  '  Deirdre,'  for  her  skin  of 
cream  and  her  grey  eyes  and  billowing  clouds  of  black  hair. 
Society  raved  of  her  for  three  seasons,  until  the  fools  went 
even  madder  about  that  little  woman — Manon  Lescaut  in  Saxe 
biscuit — who  bolted  with  the  man  my  glorious  Biddy  had 
given  her  beautiful  hand  to.  And  the  result!  She — who 
might  have  married  an  Ambassador  and  queened  it  in  Peters- 
burg with  the  best  of  'em — she's  in  a  whitewashed  Convent, 
superintending  the  education  of  Dutch  and  Afrikander  school- 
girls in  Greek,  Latin,  French,  Algebra  and  Mathematics, 
Calisthenics,  needlework,  the  torture  of  the  piano,  and  the 


146  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

twiddle  of  the  globes.  He  has  something  to  answer  for,  that 
old  crony  of  yours !  " 

Lady  Hannah  stopped  for  breath,  giving  the  listener  his 
opportunity. 

"  My  dear  lady,  you  have  told  me  a  great  deal  without 
enlightening  me  in  the  least.  Who  is  my  *  crony,'  and  who 
was  your  friend?  " 

Lady  Hannah  opened  her  round  beady  eyes  in  astonish- 
ment. 

"Haven't  I  told  you?  She  is — or  was — Lady  Bridget- 
Mary  Bawne,  sister  of  that  high-falutin'  little  donkey  the 
present  Earl  of  Castleclare,  who  came  into  the  title  and 
married  at  eighteen.  His  wife  has  means,  I  understand.  The 
dear  old  Duchess  of  Strome,  a  cousin  of  my  mother's,  was  her 
aunt,  and  Cardinal  Voisey,  handsome  beauty,  is  an  uncle  on 
the  distaff  side.  All  the  Catholic  world  and  his  wife  were  at 
her  taking  of  the  veil  of  profession  nineteen  years  ago.  The 
Pope's  Nuncio,  thp  Cardinal-Bishop  of  Mozella,  officiated,  and 
the  Comtesse  de  Lutetia  was  there  with  the  Due  d'Or.  .  .  . 
They  didn't  cut  off  her  beautiful  black  hair,  though  we  out- 
siders were  on  tiptoe  to  see  the  thing  done.  I  don't  think 
I  ever  cried  so  much  in  my  life.  Had  hysterics — real — when 
I  got  home,  and  mother  scolded  fearfully.  The  Duke  of 

C came  with  his  equerry,  and  after  the  cloister  gates  had 

shut — crash — on  beautiful  Biddy  in  her  bridal  laces,  and  white 
satin,  and  ropes  of  pearls,  and  we  were  all  waiting,  breathless, 
for  her  to  come  back  in  the  habit,  I  heard  the  Duke  say,  not 

that  the  dear  old  thing  ever  meant  to  be  profane:  '  By  G- ! 

General,  I'm  dee'd  if  Captain  Mildare  hasn't  made  Heaven 
Ian  uncommonly  handsome  present!'  And  the  man  he  said 
'that  to  was  the  husband  of  the  very  woman  Dicky  had  run 
(away  with  not  quite  twelve  months  before.  Mercy  on  us!  " 

"  Good  God !  "  the  listener  had  cried  and  started  to  his 
feet,  the  dark  blood  rushing  to  his  forehead.  The  ivory-pale, 
mutety-suffering  face  against  the  background  of  whitewashed 
wall  flashed  back  upon  his  memory,  in  a  circle  of  dazzling 
light.  He  saw  her  again,  leaning  against  the  door  of  the 
chapel  as  he  told  her  the  cruel  news.  He  heard  her  saying: 

"  Are  you  at  liberty  to  tell  me  the  date  of  Captain  Mildare's 
death?  For  I  know — one  who  was  also  his  friend — and 
would  take  an  interest  in  the  particulars." 

The  particulars!  And  he  had  bludgeoned  the  woman  with 
them — stabbed  her  to  the  heart,  poor  soul,  unknowing.  .  .  . 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  H7 

He  was  blameless,  but  he  could  not  forgive  himself.  .  .  . 
He  drove  his  teeth  down  savagely  into  his  lower  lip,  and 
muttered  an  excuse,  and  went  away  abruptly,  leaving  Lady 
Hannah  staring.  He  took  leave  soon  after,  and  went  to  his 
own  quarters  with  the  D.A.A.G.,  while  her  ladyship,  with  in- 
finite relief,  getting  rid  of  her  feminine  guests,  repaired  with 
Captain  Bingham  Wrynche,  familiarly  known  to  a  wide  circle 
of  friends  as  "  Bingo,"  and  several  chosen  spirits  to  the  billiard- 
room,  for  snooker,  pool,  and  whisky-and-soda. 

"  The  grey  wolf  is  on  the  prowl  to-night,"  said  one  of  the 
chosen  spirits,  as  he  chalked  Lady  Hannah's  cue  with  fastidious 
care.  He  winked  across  the  table  at  Bingo,  sunset  red  with 
dinner,  champagne,  and  stroke-play. 

"S'st!"  sibilated  the  Captain  warningly,  winking  in  the 
direction  of  his  wife.  Lady  Hannah,  her  little  thumb  cocked 
in  the  air,  her  round,  birdlike  eyes  scientifically  calculating 
angles,  paused  before  making  a  rapid  stroke,  to  say: 

"  Don't  be  cheaply  mysterious,  my  dear  man.  Of  course, 
the  Colonel  visits  the  defences  and  outposts  and  things  regularly 
after  dark.  It's  part  of  the  routine,  surely?  " 

'  Of  course.  But  you  don't  suppose  he  goes  alone,  do  you, 
old  lady?"  queried  Captain  Bingo. 

"  I  suppose  he  takes  his  A.D.C." 

"  Not  to  mention  a  detachment  of  the  B.S.A.  Also  a  squad 
of  the  Town  Guard  in  red  neckties,  solar  topees  and  bandoliers ; 
with  the  Rifles'  Band,  and  D  Squadron  of  the  Baraland  Ir- 
regular Horse.  Isn't  that  the  routine,  Beauvayse?  You're 
more  up  in  these  things  than  me,  and  I  fancy  there  was  a 
change  in  the  Order  for  the  evenin'." 

"  Rather ! "  assented  Beauvayse,  continuing,  to  the  rapture 
of  winking  Bingo.  "  On  reaching  the  earthworks  where  our 
obsoletes  are  mounted,  the  townies  will  now  fire  a  salute  of 
blank,  without  falling  down,  and  the  Band  have  instructions 
to  play  *  There's  Death  in  the  Old  Guns  Yet.'  Those  were 
the  only  material  changes,  except  that  sentries  will  for  the 
future  wear  fly  and  fever  belts  outside  instead  of  in." 

"  So  that  he  can  see  at  a  glance,"  Lady  Hannah  said  ap- 
provingly, "  that  all  precautions  are  being  taken.  Very 
sensible,  I  call  it." 

"Ha,  ha,  haw!"  Bingo's  joyous  explosion  revealed  to  the 
outraged  woman  the  fact  that  she  had  been  "  had."  "  Haw, 
haw!  What  a  beggar  you  are  to  rot,  Beauvayse,  and  that 
makes  five  to  us," 


148  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

Lady  Hannah,  vibrating  with  womanly  indignation,  had 
made  her  long-delayed  stroke,  missed  the  pyramid  ball,  and  sent 
Pink  spinning  into  the  pocket.  She  threw  aside  her  cue 
and  rubbed  her  fingers  angrily.  She  hated  losing,  and  they 
were  playing  for  shilling  lives  and  half-a-crown  on  the 
game. 

"You — schoolboys!"  She  threw  them  a  glance  of  disdain, 
as  Beauvayse,  his  seraphic  face  again  screwed  in  his  supereroga- 
tory eyeglass,  lounged  over  the  table.  "  You  artless  babes ! 
Did  you  suppose  I  should  be  likely  to  swallow  such  a  feuille 
de  chou  without  even  oil  and  vinegar?  For  pity's  sake,  leave 
off  winking,  Bingo!  It's  a  habit  that  dates  back  to  the  era 
when  women  wore  ringlets  and  white  book-muslin,  and  men 
sported  shaggy  white  beaver  hats  and  pegtop  trousers,  and  all 
the  world  read  the  novels  of  Lever  and  Dickens." 

"  Have  Lever  and  Boz  gone  out?"  asked  Beauvayse,  pocket- 
ing his  pyramid  ball.  "  I  play  at  Blue."  He  hit  Blue  scien- 
tifically off  the  cushion  and  went  on.  "  Read  'em  myself  over 
and  over  again,  and  find  'em  give  points  in  the  way  of  amuse- 
ments to  the  piffle  Mudie  sends  out.  Not  that  I  pretend  to 
be  a  judge  of  literature.  Only  know  when  I'm  not  bored, 
you  know.  You  to  play,  Lord  Henry." 

But  the  senior  officer  of  the  Staff,  Lady  Hannah's  partner, 
had  vanished.  Somebody  passing  the  open  window  of  the 
billiard-room  had  whistled  a  bar  or  so  of  a  particularly  pleasant 
little  tune.  Another  man  took  the  senior's  place,  and  the 
game  went  on,  but  never  finished,  for  one  by  one,  after  the 
same  quiet,  unobtrusive  fashion,  the  male  players  melted  away. 
.  .  .  Left  alone,  Lady  Hannah,  feeling  uncommonly  like  the 
idle  boy  in  the  nursery-story  who  asked  the  beasts  and  birds 
and  insects  to  play  with  him,  betook  herself  to  bed. 

The  arrogance  of  men!  she  thought  as  she  hung  her  trans- 
formation Pompadour  coiffure  on  the  looking-glass.  How  cool, 
how  unshaken  in  their  conviction  of  superiority,  in  spite  of  all 
deference,  courtesy,  pretence  of  consideration  for  Queen  Dolt. 
But  she  would  show  them  all,  one  of  these  days,  what  could  be 
achieved  by  a  unit  of  the  despised  majority.  .  .  . 

"  I  should  like  to  see  him  at  night-work,"  she  said  after- 
wards, when,  very  late,  her  Bingo  appeared  in  the  shadow  of 
the  conjugal  mosquito-curtains. 

"  You  wouldn't,"  was  her  martial  lord's  reply. 

"Wouldn't  what?"  asked  Lady  Hannah,  sitting  up  in 
tropical  sleeping  attire. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  149 

Bingo,  applying  her  cold  cream  to  a  sun-cracked  nose,  replied 
to  her  reflection  in  the  looking-glass: 

"  You  wouldn't  see  him.  Like  the  flea  in  the  American 
story,  when  you've  got  your  finger  on  him  is  the  time  he  isn't 
there." 

"  But  he  is  there  for  you?" 

Bingo  shook  his  head,  holding  the  candle  near  the  glass  and 
regarding  his  leading  feature  with  interest. 

"  Not  if  he  don't  choose  to  be.  By  the  living  Tinker !  if 
I  go  on  browning  and  chipping  at  this  rate,  I  shall  do  for  the 
Etruscan  Antiquity  Room  at  the  British  Museum.  Piff,  what 
a  smell  of  burning!  It's  the  hair-thing  hangin'  on  the  lookin'- 
glass." 

Male  Society  began  to  practice  the  shedding  of  its  final  g's, 
you  will  remember,  about  the  time  that  Female  Society  took 
to  wearing  transformation  coiffures.  Lady  Hannah,  her  ac- 
tive little  figure  rustling  in  the  thinnest  of  silk  drapery,  jumped 
nimbly  out  of  bed,  and  rushed  to  save  her  property. 

"Idiot!"  she  shrieked. 

"Frightfully  sorry!  But  you're  lumps  prettier  without," 
said  Bingo. 

"  Don't  pile  insult  on  injury." 

"Couldn't  flatter  for  nuts!" 

"  I'll  forgive  you  if  you'll  tell  me  how  he  manages — to  attain 
invisibility." 

Bingo  struck  an  attitude  and  began  to  declaim: 

"  As  the  sable  shades  of  Night  were  broodin'  over  the  be- 
leaguered town  of  Gueldersdorp,  the  manly  form  of  a  myste- 
rious bearded  stranger  in  grey  reach-me-downs  and  a  felt  slouch 
might  have  been  observed  directin'  its  steps  from  one  to  the 
other  of  the  various  outlyin'  pickets  posed  on  the  veld  .  .  ." 

"Once  for  all,  I  decline  to  believe  such  theatrical  rubbish! 
A  beard,  indeed!  Why  not  a  paper  nose  and  a  pierrot's 
cap?" 

"Why  not?"  acquiesced  placid  Bingo,  getting  into  bed. 
But  the  eye  concealed  by  the  pillow  winked;  for  he  had  told 
her  the  absolute  truth,  and  woman-like,  that  was  just  what 
she  wouldn't  swallow,  as  he  said  to  Beauvayse  next  morning. 

XXII 

'  THE  Town  Guard,"  according  to  Billy  Keyse,  who  kept  a 
Betts'  Journal,  one  shilling  net,  including  Rail  and  Ocean  Ac- 


150  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

cident  Insurance,  was  "  a  kind  of  amachoor  copper,  swore  in 
to  look  after  the  dorp,  stand  guard,  and  do  sentry-go,  and 
tumble  to  arms,  just  as  the  town  dogs  leave  off  barkin*,  an'  the 
old  gal  in  the  room  next  yours  is  startin'  to  snore  like  a  Kaffir 
sow." 

Later  on  even  more  was  asked  of  the  townie,  and  he  rose  to 
the  demand. 

The  smasher  hat  was  not  unbecoming  to  the  manly  brow  it 
shaded,  when  W.  Keyse  put  it  on  and  anxiously  consulted  the 
small  greenish  swing  looking-glass  that  graced  the  chest  of 
drawers,  the  most  commanding  article  of  furniture  in  his  room 
at  Filliter's  Boarding-House.  It  was  Mrs.  Filliter  who 
snored  in  the  room  on  the  other  side  of  the  thin  partition. 
Like  the  immortal  Mrs.  Todgers,  she  was  harassed  by  the  de- 
mands of  her  resident  gentlemen  in  connection  with  gravy; 
but,  unlike  Mrs.  Todgers,  she  never  supplied  even  browned 
and  heated  water  as  an  equivalent.  And  the  mutton  was 
wonderfully  lean,  and  the  fowls,  but  for  difference  in  size, 
might  have  been  ostriches,  they  were  so  wiry  of  muscle,  es- 
pecially as  regarded  the  legs.  A  time  was  to  come  when  Mrs. 
Filliter  was  to  cook  shrapnel-killed  mule  and  exhausted  cavalry 
charger  for  her  gentlemen,  and  when  they  were  to  bear  up 
better  than  most  sufferers  from  this  tough  and  lasting  form  of 
diet,  because  of  not  having  previously  been  pampered,  as  Mrs. 
Filliter  expressed  it,  with  delicacies  and  kickshaws. 

The  bandolier  was  heavy  upon  the  thin  shoulders  and  hollow 
chest  of  a  pale  young  Cockney,  who  had  drifted  down  from 
Southampton  in  the  steerage,  and  roared  and  rattled  up  from 
Cape  Town  by  the  three  foot  six  inch  gauge  railway,  eight 
hundred  and  seventy  miles,  to  Gueldersdorp,  that  he  might 
find  his  crown  of  manhood  waiting  there.  The  second-hand 
Sam  Browne  belt  was  distinctly  good ;  the  yellow  putties,  worn 
with  his  own  brown  lace-up  boots,  took  trouble  to  adjust.  And 
it  was  barely  possible,  even  by  standing  the  small  swing  look- 
ing-glass on  the  floor,  and  tilting  it  excessively,  to  see  how 
one's  legs  looked.  Billy  suffered  from  the  conviction  that  these 
limbs  were  over  thin.  Behind  the  counter  of  a  fried-fish  shop 
in  High  Street,  Camden  Town,  serving  slabs  of  browned  hake, 
and  skate,  and  penn'orths  of  fried  eels  and  chips  to  the  hungry 
customers  who  surge  in  tempestuously  to  be  fed  on  their  home- 
ward way  from  the  Oxford  or  the  Camden  Hall  of  Varieties, 
or  the  theatre  at  the  junction  of  Gower  Street  and  the  Hamp- 
stead  Road — one  develops  acuteness  of  observation  in  such  a 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  151 

service,  one  gains  experience.  There  is  always  the  bloke  who 
cuts  and  runs  without  paying,  or  eats  and  shows  reversed 
trouser-pockets  in  default  of  settlement,  to  deal  with.  But  one 
does  not  develop  muscle,  the  thing  above  all  that  Billy  most 
longed  to  possess.  When  he  went  into  the  printing-business 
and  bent  all  day  over  the  forms  of  type  in  the  composing- 
room,  hand-setting  up  the  columns  of  the  North  London  Half- 
penny Herald,  to  the  tune  of  three-and-eightpence  a  day,  the 
hollow  chest  grew  hollower,  and  he  developed  a  "corf."  The 
physician  in  charge  of  the  out-patients'  department  at  Univer- 
sity College  Hospital  said  there  was  lung-trouble,  and  a  man 
at  the  printing  office  who  had  never  been  there,  said  South 
Africa  was  the  cure  for  that.  And  W.  Keyse  had  thirty 
pounds  in  the  Post-Office  Savings  Bank,  earned  by  the  sweat 
of  a  brow  which  was  his  best  feature,  and  the  steamships  were 
advertising  ten-pound  third-class  single  fares  to  Cape  Town. 
One  of  the  Societies  for  the  Aid  of  Emigrants  would  have 
helped  him,  but  while  Billy  'ad  a  bit  of  'is  own,  no  Blooming 
Paupery,  said  he,  for  him.  His  sole  living  relative,  an  aunt 
who  inhabited  one  of  a  row  of  ginger-brick  Virginia-creeper- 
clad  almshouses  "  over  aginst  'Ighgyte  Cimitery,"  sniffled  a 
little  when  he  called  to  say  good-bye,  bring  a  parting  present 
of  a  half-pound  of  Liphook's  Luscious  Tea  and  a  screw  of 
snuff. 

"  I  shan't  never  see  you  no  more,  William." 

"  Ow  yes,  you  will,  mother !  Don't  be  such  a  silly !  "  Wil- 
liam's cousin  'Melia,  in  service  as  general  in  the  Adelaide  Road, 
Chalk  Farm  end,  had  said;  and  she  had  looked  coldly  upon 
William  immediately  afterwards,  bestowing  an  amorous  ogle 
upon  Lobster,  who  sat  well  forward  upon  a  backless  Windsor 
chair,  sucking  the  silver  top  of  his  swagger  cane — Lobster,  who 
was  six  foot  high  and  in  the  Grenadier  Guards,  and  had  sup- 
planted William  in  'Melia's  affections  for  they  'ad  used  to 
walk  out  regularly  on  Sundays  and  holidays  before  Lobster 
came  along.  How  William  loved  Lobster  now!  Why,  but 
for  him  he  might  have  been  married  to  'Melia  now — doomed 
to  tread  in  the  ways  of  commonplace,  ordinary  married  life,  to 
live  and  die  without  once  having  peeped  into  Paradise,  without 
ever  having  looked  upon  the  only  woman  in  this  world !  Owner 
of  the  glorious  golden  pigtail,  the  entrancing,  figure  bewitch- 
ing, twinkling,  teasing  eyes  of  blue! 

Suppose — only  suppose — the  silent  threatening  Thing  across 
the  border,  jewelled  with  the  glowing  Argus-eyes  of  many 


152  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

camp-fires,  conjecturable  in  dark  masses  flecked  with  the  white 
of  waggon-tilts,  and  sometimes  giving  out  the  dull  gleam  of 
iron  or  the  sparkle  of  steel,  were  to  choose  this,  W.  Keyse's 
first  night  on  guard,  for  an  attack!  Even  to  the  inexperience 
of  W.  K.  the  sand-bagger  earthworks  built  about  Guelders- 
dorp,  the  barricades  of  trek-waggons  and  railway-trucks  block- 
ing up  the  roads  debouching  on  the  veld,  the  extending  lines 
of  trenches,  the  watchdog  of  forts,  the  sentinelled  pickets,  the 
noiseless,  continually  moving  patrols,  all  the  various  parts  of  the 
masterly  machinery  of  defence,  controlled  by  one  master-hand 
upon  the  levers,  would  count  for  nothing  against  that  over- 
whelming onrush  of  armed  thousands,  that  flood  of  men 
dammed  up  above  the  town,  and  waiting  the  signal  to  roll  down 
and  overwhelm  her,  and — Cr'rips!  what  a  chance  to  make 
a  glorious,  heroic  splash  in  Her  sight!  Die,  perhaps,  in  saving 
her  from  them  Dutchies.  To  be  sure,  she,  divine  creature,  was 
a  Dutchy  too.  But  no  matter — a  time  would  come  .  .  . 

Confident  in  the  coming  of  that  time,  W.  Keyse  took  the 
brown  rifle  tenderly  from  the  corner,  and  replaced  the  meagre 
little  looking-glass  upon  the  yellow  chest  of  drawers.  In  the 
act  of  bestowing  a  final  glance  of  scrutiny  upon  his  upper  lip, 
whose  manly  crop  had  unaccountably  delayed,  he  caught  sight 
of  a  cheap  paper-covered  book  lying  beside  the  tin  candlestick 
whose  tallow  dip  had  aided  perusal  of  the  volume  o'  nights. 
The  red  surged  up  in  his  thin  cheeks  as  he  picked  up  the  thing. 
There  were  horrible  woodcuts  in  it,  coloured  with  terrible 
splashes  of  red  and  blue  and  yellow,  and  the  print  contained 
matter  more  lurid  still.  Vice  mopped  and  mowed  and  slavered, 
obscene  and  hideous,  within  those  gaudy  covers. 

He  looked  round  the  mean,  poor,  ugly  room,  the  volume  in 
his  hand;  a  photograph  of  the  dubious  sort  leered  from  the 
wall  beside  the  bed. 

"  If  they  rushed  us  to-night,  an'  I  got  shot  in  the  scrap,  an* 
they  brought  me  back  'ere,  dyin',  and  She  came  .  .  .  an'  saw 
that  .  .  .!"  His  ears  were  scarlet  as  he  dashed  at  the  leering 
photograph  and  tore  it  down.  Oh,  Billy  Keyse,  it  is  pitiful  to 
think  you  had  to  blush,  but  good  to  know  you  had  not  forgotten 
how  to.  There  was  a  little  rusty  fireplace  in  the  room.  Billy 
burned  something  in  it  that  left  nothing  but  a  feathery  pile  of 
ashes,  and  a  little  shameful  heap  of  mud  in  the  corner  of  a  boy's 
memory,  before  he  hurried  to  the  town  Guardhouse,  where 
jther  bandoliers  were  mustering,  and  fell  in.  As  though  the 
Powers  designed  to  reward  an  act  of  virtue  on  the  very  night 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  153 

of  its  performance,  he  was  posted  by  his  picket  in  the  lee  of  the 
high  corrugated  iron  fence  of  the  tree-bordered  tennis-ground 
behind  the  Convent,  as  "  Lights  Out  "  sounded  from  the  camp 
of  the  Irregulars,  behind  the  railway-sheds  and  storehouses. 

It  was  glorious  to  be  there,  taking  care  of  Her,  though  it 
would  have  been  nicer  if  one  had  been  allowed  to  smoke.  The 
moon  of  Billy's  passion-inspired  verse  was  not  shining  o'er 
South  Africa's  plain  upon  this  the  very  night  for  her.  It  was 
dark  and  close  and  stiflingly  hot.  A  dust-wind  had  blown  that 
day,  and  the  suspended  particles  thickened  the  atmosphere,  to 
the  oppression  of  the  lungs  and  the  hiding  of  the  stars.  He 
knew  his  picket  posted  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away  on  the  other 
side  of  the  cemetery;  his  fellow-sentry  was  on  the  opposite 
flank  of  the  Convent.  He  was  a  stout,  middle-aged  trades- 
man, with  a  large  wife  and  a  corresponding  family,  and  it 
wrung  the  heart  of  W.  Keyse  to  think  that  a  tricky  fate  might 
have  placed  that  insensible  man  on  the  side  where  'Er  window 
was!  Through  the  boughs  of  the  peach  and  orange  trees, 
whose  unripe  fruit  was  thimble-size,  you  could  get  an  occasional 
glimpse  of  whitewashed  brick  walls,  darkened  by  the  outline 
of  shuttered  oblongs  here  and  there.  And  Imagination  could 
blow  her  cloud  of  fragrant  vapour,  though  tobacco  were  denied 
you. 

"  They're  all  'Er  windows  while  she's  there  be'ind  them 
walls,"  was  the  reflection  in  which  Billy  Keyse  found  comfort. 

She  was  not  there.  She  was  at  that  moment  being  kissed 
on  the  stoep  of  the  Du  Taine  homestead  near  Johannesburg, 
by  a  young  officer  of  Staats  Artillery,  to  whom  she  had  agreed 
to  be  clandestinely  engaged,  though  Papa  Du  Taine  had  other 
views. 

W.  Keyse  was  spared  this  tragic  knowledge.  But  if  the 
moon,  shining  beautifully  over  the  Du  Taine  gardens  and 
orange-groves,  had  chosen  to  tell  tales! 

It  was  still — still  and  quiet ;  a  blue  radiance  of  electric  light 
burned  here  and  there,  at  the  Staff  Office  on  the  Market 
Square,  and  at  other  centres  of  purposeful  activity.  Aromatic 
beer-cellars  and  whisky-saloons  gave  out  a  yellow  glare  of  gas- 
jets;  the  red  lamp  of  an  apothecary  showed  a  wakeful  eye. 
Gueldersdorp  sprawled  in  the  outline  of  a  sleeping  turtle  on 
her  squat  hillock  of  gravelly  earth  and  sand.  In  the  smoke- 
^^ibured  folds,  closely  matching  the  lowering  dim  sea  of  va- 
puurs  brooding  overhead,  the  prairie  spread  about  her,  deepen-^ 
ing  to  a  basined  valley  in  the  middle  distances,  sweeping  to  a 


154  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

rise  beyond,  so  that  the  edges  of  the  basin  looked  down  upon 
the  town.  High  on  the  hill-ranges  in  the  South  more  chains 
of  red  sparks  burned  ...  he  knew  them  for  the  watch-fires 
of  the  Boer  outposts,  and  the  raised  edges  of  the  basin  East 
and  North  were  set  thickly  with  similar  twinkling  jewels 
where  the  laagers  were;  while  smaller  groups  shone  nearer, 
marking  the  situation  of  isolated  vedettes.  The  sickly  taint 
upon  the  faint  breeze  told  of  massed  arrd  clustered  humanity. 
'Strewth,  how  they  stunk,  the  brutes!  He  hoped  there  was 
enough  of  'em,  lying  doggo  up  there,  waiting  the  word  to  roll 
down  and  swallow  the  blooming  dorp!  His  palate  grew  dry, 
as  the  sweat  broke  out  upon  his  temples  and  trickled  down  the 
back  of  his  neck,  and  the  palms  of  his  hands  were  moist  and 
clammy.  Also,  under  the  buckles  of  the  Sam  Browne  belt  was 
a  sinking,  all-gone  sensation  excessively  unpleasant  to  feel. 
Perhaps  W.  Keyse  had  a  touch  of  fever!  Then  the  stout 
tradesman  on  the  other  side  of  the  Convent  sneezed  suddenly, 
and  W.  Keyse,  with  every  nerve  in  his  body  jarring  from  the 
shock,  knew  that  he  was  simply  suffering  from  funk. 

Staggering  from  the  shock  of  the  horrible  self-revelation,  he 
gritted  his  teeth.  There  was  a  Billy  Keyse  who  was  a  bloom- 
ing coward  inside  the  other  who  was  not.  He  told  the  sick- 
ening, white-gilled  little  coward  what  he  thought  of  him.  He 
only  wished — that  is,  one  of  him  only  wished — that  a  gang 
of  the  Dutchies  would  come  along  now!  He  drew  a  lurid 
picture  for  the  benefit  of  the  trembler,  and  when  the  young 
soldier  had  fired  into  the  brown  of  them  and  seen  the  whites 
of  their  eyes,  and  fallen,  pierced  by  a  hundred  wounds,  in  the 
successful  defence  of  the  Convent,  he  was  carried  in,  and  laid 
on  a  sofa,  and  nobody  could  recognize  him,  along  of  all  the 
blood,  until  She  came,  with  her  white  little  feet  peeping  from 
the  hem  of  a  snowy  nightgown,  and  her  unbraided  pigtail 
swamping  the  white  with  gold,  and  knew  that,  it  was  'Im,  and 
knelt  by  the  hero's  side.  Soft  music  from  the  Orchestra, 
please!  As  with  his  final  breath  W.  Keyse  implores  a  last, 
first  kiss.  Even  as  Billy  No.  i  thrilled  to  the  rapture  of  that 
imagined  osculation,  Billy  No.  2  experienced  a  ghastly  fright. 

For  out  of  the  enfolding  velvety  darkness  ahead  of  him,  and 
looking  towards  those  firefly  sparks  shining  on  the  heights, 
came  the  sound  of  stealthy  measured  footsteps  and  muffled 
voices  talking  Dutch.  The  enemy  had  made  a  sortie.  The 
defences  had  been  rushed,  the  town  surrounded.  Yet  there 
were  only  two  of  them — a  big,  slouching  villain  and  a  short 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  155 

thin  one,  who  wore  a  giant  hat.  The  chirping  sound  of  a  kiss 
damped  the  fierce  martial  ardour  of  Billy  the  First,  and  greatly 
reassured  Billy  the  Second.  It  was  only  a  townsman  taking 
a  night  walk  with  his  girl! 

Crushed  and  discouraged,  W.  Keyse  relaxed  his  grip  upon 
the  trusty  rifle,  and  slunk  back  into  the  shadow,  as  the  tall  and 
the  short  figures  halted  at  the  angle  of  the  fence. 

"  'Ain't  it  a  'eavenly  night  ?  "  came  from  the  short  figure, 
who  leaned  against  the  tall  one  affectionately.  "  An'  me  got 
to  go  in.  A  crooil  shyme,  I  call  it.  'Ain't  it,  deer?  Leggo 
me  wyste,  there's  a  love.  You've  no  notion  5ow  I  shall  cop  it 
for  bein'  lyte." 

He  sportively  declined  to  release  her.  There  was  the  sound 
of  a  soft  slap,  followed  by  the  smack  of  a  kiss.  She  was  very 
angry. 

"  Leggo,  I  tell  yer!  Where's  your  manners,  'orlin'  me 
abart!  If  that's  the  way  you  be'ayve  with  your  Dutch 
ones  .  .  .!" 

He  spat  and  asseverated: 
"  Neen !     I  no  other  girls  but  you  heb  got." 
It  was  the  Slabbert  with  Emigration  Jane. 
"  Ho!     So  you  can  talk  English  a  bit — give  you  a  chance?  " 
"  Ja,  a  little  now  and  then  when  it  is  useful.     But  when  we 
are  to  be  married,  you  shall  only  to  me  talk  in  my  own  moder 
Taal." 

"  Shan't  I  myke  a  gay  old  'ash  of  it !  "  Recklessly  she 
crushed  the  large  hat  against  the  unwieldy  shoulder.  "  There 
good-night,  agin,  deer!  Sister  Tobias — that's  what  they  call 
the  one  that  'ousekeeps  and  manages  the  kitchens — Sister  To- 
bias '11  be  sittin'  up  for  me,  thinkin'  I've  got  meself  lost  or  bin 
run  away  with."  She  gurgled  enjoyingly. 

"  Tell  me  again,  before  you  shall  go,  about  the  Engelsch 
Commandant  who  came  to  visit  at  the  Convent  to-day." 

"Lor!  'Aven't  I  told  you  a' ready?  'E  stopped  'arf  an 
'our  or  more  .  .  .  an'  She — that's  the  Reverend  Mother,  as 
they  call  her — She  took  'im  over  the  'ouse,  an'  after  'E'd  gone 
through  the  'ouse,  an'  Sister  Tobias — ain't  that  a  rummy  name 
for  a  nun? — Sister  Tobias,  she  showed  'im  to  the  gyte,  an'  'e 
says  to  'er  as  wot  'e's  goin'  to  'ave  the  flagstaff  rigged  up  in 
the  gardin  fust  thing  to-morrow  mornin',  an'  'e'll  undertake 
that  the  workin'-party  detached  for  the  purpose  will  know  'ow 
to  be'ayve  theirselves  respectful.  An'  then  'e  touches  'is  'at 
an'  gets  on  'is  'orse  an'  .  .  JL 


156  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

"  Listen  to  me."  The  Slabbertian  command  of  that  barbaric 
language  of  the  Englanders  evoked  her  surprise,  but  the  pain- 
ful squeeze  he  gave  her  arm  commanded  attention.  "  Next 
time  the  English  Commandant  to  the  house  shall  come,  you 
to  listen  at  the  keyhole  is." 

"Wot  for?" 

"  For  what  have  you  before  at  keyholes  listened,  little 
stupid?" 

"To  find  out  when  they  was  goin'  to  sack  me,  so's  to  git 
me  own  notice  in  fust — see?  Then  you  can  say  to  the  lydy 
at  the  Registry  Office — and  don't  they  give  theirselves  hairs! 
— as  wot  you're  leaving  because  the  place  don't  suit. 
Twiggy?" 

"  You  for  yourself  did  listen,  then.  Good.  Now  it  is  for 
me  you  listen  will,  if  you  a  good  Boer's  vrouw  wish  to  become 
by-and-by." 

She  rose  to  the  immemorial  allure  that  is  never  out  of  season 
in  angling  for  her  simple  kind. 

"That  word  you  said  means — wife,  don't  it,  deer?"  Her 
voice  trembled;  the  joyous,  longed-for  haven  of  marriage — 
was  it  possible  that  it  might  be  in  sight? 

"  It  shall  mean  wife,  if  you  obey  me — ja — otherwise  it  will 
be  that  I  shall  marry  the  daughter  of  a  good  countryman  of 
mine,  who  many  sheep  has,  and  much  land  and  plenty  of  money 
to  give  his  daughter  when  she  a  husband  gets!  " 

Her  under  lip  dropped  pitifully,  and  the  tears  welled  up.  It 
was  too  dark  to  see  her  crying,  but  he  heard  her  sob,  and 
grinned,  himself  unseen. 

"I'll  do  anything  for  you,  deer!  Only  don't  take  an'  'ave 
the  other  One.  She  may  be  a  Dutchy,  but  she  won't  never 
care  for  yer  like  wot  I  do.  Don't  you  know  it,  Walt?" 

"  I  shall  it  know  when  I  hear  what  you  have  found  out," 
proclaimed  the  Slabbert  grimly. 

There  was  a  boiling  W.  Keyse  in  the  deep  shadow  of  the  tall 
corrugated-iron  fence,  who  restrained  with  difficulty  a  snort 
of  indignation. 

"  On'y  tell  me,  deer.  I'll  find  out  anythink  you  want  me 
to."  Before  her  spread  a  lovely  vista  of  floors — her  own  floors 
— to  scrub,  and  a  kitchen  range — hers,  too — which  should  cook 
dinners  nice  enough  to  make  any  husband  adore  you. 

"You  shall  for  me  find  out  what  that  Commandant  of  the 
rooineks  is  up  to  under  his  Flag  of  the  Red  Cross." 

"  He  didn't  say  nothink  about  no  Red  Cross,  darlin'." 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  15; 

"  Stilte!  They  will  the  Red  Cross  Flag  hoist,  I  tell  you, 
and  it  will  cover  more  than  a  parcel  of  nuns  and  schoolgirls. 
That  Commandant  is  so  verdoemte  slim!  Tell  me,  do  you 
cartridges  well  know  when  you  shall  see  them?  Little  brown 
rolls  with  at  one  end  a  copper  cap — and  at  the  other  a  bullet. 
And  gunpowder — you  have  that  seen  also  ?  " 

She  quavered. 

"Yes;  but  you  don't  want  me  to  touch  the  narsty,  dreadful 
stuff,  do  you,  Wally  deer?" 

He  scoffed. 

"  Afraid  of  gunpowder,  Meisje,  that  like  a  whey-blooded 
Engelschwoman  is.  A  true  Boer's  daughter  would  know  how 
to  load  a  gun,  look  you,  and  shoot  a  man — many  men — if  for 
the  good  of  the  Republic  it  should  be!  But  you  will  learn. 
Watch  out,  I  tell  you,  for  stores  that  Commandant  will  be 
sending  into  the  Convent.  Square  boxes  and  long  boxes,  and 
cases — some  of  them  heavy  as  if  lined  with  iron ;  painted  black 
with  white  letters,  and  others  stone-colour  with  black  letters, 
and  yet  others  grey  with  red  letters;  the  letters  remember — 
'A.O.S.'" 

"But  wot  '11  be  in  the  boxes,  deer?" 

His  English,  conned  from  recently  published  Imperial  Army 
Service  manuals,  grew  severely  technical: 

"  If  you  could  their  big  screws  unscrew,  and  their  big  locks 
unlock,  you  would  see,  but  you  will  not  be  able.  What  in 
them?  Cakes!  Black,  square  cakes,  with  in  them  holes;  and 
grey,  square  cakes,  and  red  cakes,  light  and  crumbly,  that  dog- 
biscuits  resemble ;  and  long  brown  sticks,  like  peppermint-candy, 
in  bundles  tied  together  with  string  and  paper.  Boxes  of  stuff 
like  the  hair  of  horse,  and  packets  of  evil  little  electric  detonat- 
ors in  tubes  of  copper.  Alamachtig!  who  knows  what  he  has 
not  got — that  Engelsch  Commandant — both  in  the  dorp  and 
hidden  in  those  thrice-accursed  mines  that  he  has  laid  on  the 
veld  about  her.  Prismatic  powder  and  gun-cotton,  dynamite 
and  cordite  enough  to  blow  a  dozen  commandos  of  honest 
Booren  into  dust — a  small,  fine  dust  of  bones  and  flesh  that 
shall  afterwards  fall  mingled  with  rain  of  blood.  For  I  tell 
you  that  man  has  the  wickedness  of  the  duyvel  in  him,  and  the 
cunning  of  an  old  baboon !  " 

She  babbled: 

"  'Ow  pretty  you  talk  English  when  you  want  to,  Walty 
deer !  'Aven't  you  bin  gettin'  at  me  all  along,  makin'  out  .  .  .*' 

He  swore  at  her  savagely,  and  she  held  her  tongue,  wor- 


158  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

shipping  this  new  development  of  masterful  brutality  in  a  man 
whom  she  had  regarded  as  a  "  big  softy." 

He  went  on: 

"  Now  you  know  what  to  look  for,  and  when  the  verdoemte 
explosives  come,  you  will  know  them  by  the  boxes  and  the 
letters  '  A.O.S.' — and  you  will  tell  me — and  the  guns  of  our 
Staats  Artillery  will  not  shoot  that  way,  for  the  sake  of  the 
little  woman  who  is  going  to  be  a  good  Boer's  wife  by-and-by." 

She  threw  her  arms  about  his  rascally  neck,  and  laid  her 
head  upon  his  hulking  shoulder,  regardless  of  the  hat  she 
wrecked,  and  cried  in  ecstasy: 

"  I'll  do  it,  deer;  I'll  do  it,  Walty!  But  why  should  there 
be  any  shootin',  lovey?  At  'Ome  I  never  could  abear  to  see 
them  theaytre  plays  what  'ad  guns  an'  firin'  in  'em ;  it  made  me 
'art  beat  so  crooil  bad." 

He  grinned  over  the  big  hat  into  the  darkness. 

"  All  right !  I  will  tell  the  men  with  the  guns  that  you 
do  not  like  to  hear  them,  and  they  will  not  perhaps  shoot  at 
all.  But  you  will  look  out  for  the  boxes  with  the  dynamite, 
and  send  me  the  message  when  it  comes?" 

"  Course  I  will,  deer!     But  'ow  am  I  to  send  the  message?  " 

The  shadowy  right  arm  of  Slabbert  swept  out,  taking  in 
the  black  and  void  and  formless  veld  with  a  large  free  gesture. 

"  Out  to  there.  Stand  in  this  place  when  it  becomes  dark, 
looking  east.  Straight  in  front  of  us  is  east.  The  game  is 
great  fun,  and  very  easy.  Strike  a  match,  and  count  to  ten 
before  you  blow  it  out,  and  you  shall  not  have  done  that  three 
times  before  you  shall  see  him  answer." 

"But  oo's  'im?" 

"  He  is  my  friend — out  there  upon  the  veld." 

"Lor!  but  where  '11  you  be?  Didn't  you  say  as  I'd  be 
talkin'  to  you?  I  don't  'arf  fancy  wot  you  calls  the  gyme,  not 
if  I  'ave  to  play  it  with  a  strynge  bloke!  " 

The  answer  came,  accompanied  by  a  scraping,  familiar  sound. 

The  Slabbert  was  striking  a  match  of  the  fizzling,  splutter- 
ing, Swedish-made  non-safety  kind,  known  to  W.  Keyse  and 
his  circle  by  the  familiar  abbreviation  of  "  stinkers." 

"Voor  den  donder!  Have  I  not  told  you  I  shall  be  there 
with  him — after  to-night?" 

Her  womanly  tenderness  quickened  at  the  hint  of  coming 
separation.  She  clung  fondly  to  his  arm,  and  the  match  went 
out,  extinguished  by  a  maiden's  sigh.  He  shook  her  roughly 
off,  and  struck  another. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  159 

"  I  shall  go  away — ja — and  here  is  the  other  way  for  you  to 
reach  me ! " 

As  the  fresh  match  glimmered  blue,  he  held  it  at  arm's 
length  in  front  of  him,  counting  silently  up  to  ten,  then  blew 
it  out,  and  set  his  heavy  boot  upon  the  faintly-glowing  spark, 
and  did  the  thing  again. 

Endeavouring  not  to  breathe  so  as  to  be  heard,  W.  Keyse 
flattened  himself  against  the  corrugated  fence,  and  waited, 
looking  ahead  into  the  black  velvet  darkness,  sensing  the  faint 
human  taint  upon  the  tell-tale  breeze,  and  counting  with  the 
Slabbert;  and  then,  out  in  the  darkness  that  concealed  so  much 
that  was  sinister,  sprang  into  sudden  life  an  answering  bluish 
glimmer,  and  lasted  for  ten  beats  of  the  pulse,  and  went  out 
as  suddenly  as  though  a  human  breath  had  blown  upon  it. 

"  Is  that  your  pal  ?  "  she  whispered. 

"  That  is  my  pal  now."  He  struck  another  match,  and 
flared  it,  and  screened  it  with  his  big  hand,  and  showed  the 
light  again,  and  repeated  the  manoeuvre  three  times.  "  That 
is  my  pal  now — and  I  have  said  to  him  'No  news  to-night'; 
but  to-morrow  night  and  the  night  after,  and  so  on  for  many 
nights  to  come,  I  shall  be  out  there  where  he  is,  and  after  you 
have  called  me  and  I  have  answered,  just  as  he  has  done,  you 
will  tell  me  what  there  is  to  tell.  Can  you  spell  your 
language?  " 

"  Pretty  middin',  Walty  deer,  though  not  as  I  could  wish, 
owin'  to  me  'avin'  to  leave  Broad  School  in  the  Fif  Stannard 
when  father  sold  up  the  'ome  in  drink  after  mother  went  orf 
wiv  the  young  man  lodger.  Someow,  try  all  I  could,  I 
never  .  .  ." 

"  Wilt  ge  wel  zwijgen!  With  my  people,  when  men  speak, 
Boer  women  listen;  but  you  English  ones  chatter  and  chatter! 
Remember  that  this  match-talk  goes  thus:  For  the  letter  A 
one  flare,  and  hide  the  light  as  you  saw  me  do  just  now.  For 
B,  two  flares,  and  hide  the  light;  for  C,  three,  and  hide;  for 
D,  four,  and  hide;  and  so  on  to  Z.  It  is  slow,  of  course,  and 
matches  will  blow  out  when  you  do  not  want  them  to,  and  a 
cycle-lamp  or  a  candle-lantern  would  be  easier  to  deal  with, 
but  for  the  verdoemte  patrols.  Do  you  understand  ?  Say  now, 
what  I  say,  after  me.  For  the  letter  A  one  flare  and  hide. 
For  B  .  .  ." 

He  put  her  through  the  alphabet  from  end  to  end;  she  la- 
boured faithfully,  and  pleased  her  taskmaster.  He  grunted  ap- 
provingly. 


160  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

"  Zeer  goed !  See  that  you  do  not  forget.  And  remember, 
you  are  to  listen  and  watch,  and  tell  me  what  you  hear  and 
see.  If  you  are  obedient,  I  will  marry  you — by-and-by." 

He  gave  her  a  clumsy  hug  in  earnest  of  endearments  to  come. 

"  But  if  you  do  not  please  me  " — the  grip  of  his  heavy  hand 
bruised  her  shoulder  through  the  thin,  flowery  "  blowze " — 
"  I  will  punish  you — yes,  by  the  Lord,  I  will  marry  a  fine  Boer 
maiden  who  is  the  daughter  of  a  landrost,  and  who  has  got 
much  money  and  plenty  of  sheep.  And  you  can  give  yourself 
to  any  dirty  verdoemte  sckelm  of  an  Engelschman  you  please, 
for  I  will  have  none  of  you!  To-morrow  you  shall  have  a 
paper  showing  you  how  to  tell  me  very  many  things  in  match- 
talk,  and  earn  much  money  to  buy  presents  for  my  good  little 
Boer  vrouw.  Alamachtig!  what  is  this?" 

"  This  "  was  the  hard,  cold,  polished  business-end  of  a  con- 
demned Martini  poked  violently  out  of  the  blackness  into  the 
Slabbertian  thorax. 

"  Not  in  such  a  'urry  by  'arf,  you  perishin'  Dopper," 
spluttered  the  ghastly  little  man  in  bandoliers  behind  the 
weapon.  "  Put  up  them  dirty  big  'ands  o'  yours,  or,  by 
Cripps !  I'll  let  'er  off,  you  sneakin',  match-talkin'  spy !  " 

The  arms  of  Slabbert  soared  as  the  tongue  of  Slabbert 
wagged  in  explanation. 

"  This  is  assault  and  battery,  Meister,  upon  a  peaceful 
burgher.  You  shall  answer  to  your  officer  for  it,  I  tell  you 
slap.  Voor  den  donder!  Is  not  a  young  man  to  light  his  pipe 
as  he  talks  to  a  young  woman  without  being  called  spy  by  a 
verdoemte  sentry?  Tell  him,  Jannie,  that  is  all  I  did  do!" 

W.  Keyse  felt  a  little  awkward,  and  the  rifle  was  uncom- 
monly heavy.  The  Slabbert  felt  it  tremble,  and  thought  about 
taking  his  hands  down  and  reaching  for  that  Colts  six-shooter 
he  kept  in  his  hip-pocket.  But  though  the  finger  wobbled,  it 
was  at  the  trigger,  and  Walt  was  not  fond  of  risks. 

"  Tell  him,  Jannie !  "  he  spluttered  once  more. 

She  had  not  needed  a  second  bidding. 

As  the  domestic  hen  in  defence  of  her  chicken  will  give  battle 
to  the  wilde-kat,  so  Emigration  Jane,  with  ruffled  plumage, 
blazing,  defiant  eyes,  and  shrill  objurgations,  couched  in  the 
vernacular  most  familiar  to  their  object,  hurled  herself  upon  the 
enemy. 

"  You  narsty  little  brute,  you !  To  up  and  try  an'  murder 
my  young  man.  With  your  jor  about  spies!  Sauce!  I'd 
perish  you,  I  would,  if  I  was  'im!  Off  the  fyce  o'  the  earth, 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  161 

an'  chance  bein'  'ung  for  it!  Take  away  that  gun,  you  silly 
little  imitation  sojer — d'jeer?" 

The  weapon  was  extremely  weighty.  Billy  Keyse's  arms 
ached  frightfully.  Perspiration  trickled  into  his  eyes  from 
under  the  tilted  smasher.  He  felt  damp  and  small,  and  des- 
perately at  a  loss.  And — as  though  in  malice — the  moon 
looked  out  from  behind  a  curtain  of  thick,  dim  vapour,  as  he 
said  with  a  lordly  air: 

"You  be  off,  young  woman,  and  don't  interfere! " 

Gawd!  she  knew  him  in  spite  of  the  smasher  hat.  Her 
rage  burst  the  flood-gates.  She  screeched: 

"  You !  .  .  .  It's  you.  'Oo  I  done  a  good  turn  to — an' 
this  is  'ow  I  gits  it  back  ? "  She  gasped.  "  Because  you're 
arter  one  young  woman  wot  wouldn't  be  seen  dead  in  the  syme 
street  wi'  you  .  .  ." 

Pierced  with  the  awful  thought  that  the  adored  one  might 
be  listening,  W.  Keyse  lifted  up  his  voice. 

"  Sentry.  .  .  .  'Ere!  .  .  .  Mister!  "  he  cried  despairingly. 
"You  on  the  other  side,  can't  you  hear?" 

In  vain  the  call.  The  stout  fellow-townsman  of  W.  Keyse, 
comfortably  propped  in  an  angle  of  the  opposite  fence,  the  bulk 
of  the  Convent  and  the  width  of  its  garden  and  tennis-ground 
being  between  them,  continued  to  sleep  and  snore  peacefully 
and  undisturbed. 

Emigration  Jane  continued: 

"  Because  that  sly  cat  wiv  the  yeller  'air-plait  won't  'ear  o' 
you,  you  try  to  git  a  pore  servant-gal's  fancy  bloke  pinched! 
Yah,  greedy!  Boo!  You  plate-faced,  'erring-backed,  s'rimp- 
eyed  little  silly,  with  your  love-letters  an'  messijes!  Wait  till 
I  give  'er  another  o'  your  screevin' — that's  all!  " 

The  unsteady  rifle  wobbled  more  and  more. 

"  Patrol !  "  cried  W.  Keyse  in  a  despairing  whimper. 

She  advanced  upon  him  closer  and  closer,  lashing  herself  as 
she  came  to  frenzy.  How  often  had  W.  Keyse  seen  it  outside 
the  big  pubs  in  the  Tottenham  Court  Road,  and  outside  the 
Britannia,  Camden  Town!  Perhaps  the  recollection  staring, 
newly  awakened,  in  the  pale,  moonlit  eyes  of  the  little  perspir- 
ing Town  Guardsman  stung  her  to  equal  memory,  and  pro- 
voked the  act.  Who  can  tell?  We  may  only  know  that  she 
plucked  the  weapon  of  lower-class  London  from  her  hat,  and 
jabbed  at  the  pale  face  viciously,  and  heard  the  victim  say 
"  Owch ! "  as  he  winced,  and  knew  herself,  as  her  Slabbert 
gripped  the  rifle-barrel,  and  wrested  it  with  iron  strength  from 


162  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

the  failing  hands  of  W.  Keyse,  the  equal  of  those  dauntless 
Boer  women  who  killed  men  when  it  was  necessary.  But,  oh, 
the  'orrible,  'ideous  feeling  of  'aving  stuck  something  into  live 
flesh !  Sick  and  giddy,  the  heroine  shut  her  eyes,  seeing  behind 
their  lids  wondrous  phantasmagoria  of  coloured  pyrotechny, 
rivalling  the  most  marvellous  triumphs  of  the  magician 
Brock.  .  .  . 

Billy's  beheld,  at  the  moment  when  his  weapon  was 
wrenched  from  him,  two  long  grey  arms  come  out  of  the  dark- 
ness and  coil  about  the  largely-looming  form  of  Slabbert. 
Enveloped  in  the  neutral-tinted  tentacles  of  this  mysterious 
embrace,  the  big  Boer  struggled  impotently,  and  a  quick 
imperative  voice  said,  between  the  thick  pants  of  striving 
men: 

"  Get  the  gun  from  him,  will  you,  and  call  up  your  picket. 
Don't  fire ;  blow  your  whistle  instead ! " 

"  Pip-ip-ip-Yrf    Pip-ip-rr!  " 

The  long,  shrill  call  brought  armed  men  hurrying  out  of  the 
darkness  on  the  other  side  of  the  Cemetery,  and  considerably 
quickened  the  arrival  of  the  visiting  patrol. 

"  Communicating  with  persons  outside  the  defences  by  flash- 
light signals.  We  can't  shoot  him  for  it  just  yet,  but  we  can 
gaol  him  on  suspicion,"  said  the  Commander  of  the  picket. 
And  Slabbert,  with  a  stalwart  escort  of  B.S.A.  troopers,  re- 
luctantly moved  off  in  the  direction  of  the  guard-house. 

"Who  was  the  fellow  who  helped  you,  do  you  know?" 
asked  the  officer  who  had  ridden  up  with  the  patrol.  "  Threw 
him  and  sat  on  him  until  the  picket  came  up,  you  say,"  he 
commented,  on  hearing  W.  Keyse's  version  of  the  story.  "A 
tall  man  in  civilian  clothes,  with  a  dark  wideawake  and  short 
pointed  beard!  H'm!" 

"  Coming  from  the  veld,  apparently,  and  not  from  town," 
said  the  picket  Commander.  "  Must  have  known  the  counter- 
sign or  the  sentries  out  there  would  have  stopped  him.  I — 
see!  " 

He  looked  at  the  patrol-officer,  who  coughed  again.  The 
moonlight  was  quite  bright  enough  for  the  exchange  of  a  wink. 
Then: 

"  Hold  on,  man,  you're  bleeding,"  said  W.  Keyse's  sergeant, 
an  old  Naval  Brigade  man.  "  How  did  ye  get  that  'ere  nasty 
prod  under  the  eye?  " 

Billy  put  up  his  hand,  and  gingerly  felt  the  place  that  hurt 
His  fingers  were  red  when  they  came  away. 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  163 

"The  young  woman  wot  was  with  the  Dutchman,  she 
jabbed  me  with  a  'at-pin,  to  git  me  to  let  'im  go." 

"There's  a  blindin'  vixen  for  you!"  commented  the  Ser- 
geant. "  Two  inch  higher,  and  she'd  have  doused  your  light 
out.  Where  did  she  come  from,  d'ye  know?" 

"  Have  you  any  idea  who  she  was?"  asked  the  Commander 
of  the  picket. 

W.  Keyse  shook  his  head. 

"  'Aven't  the  least  idear,  sir.  Never  sor  'er  before  in  my 
natural !  "  he  declared  stoutly. 

"  Well,  you'll  know  her  again  when  you  meet  her — or  she 
will  you,"  said  the  patrol-officer,  about  to  move  on,  when  a 
deplorable  figure  came  staggering  into  the  circle,  and  the  rider 
reined  up  his  horse.  "What's  this?  Hey,  Johnny,  where's 
your  gun  ?  " 

It  was  W.  Keyse's  fellow-sentry  from  the  opposite  flank  of 
the  Convent. 

"  And  time  you  turned  up,  I  don't  think,"  commented 
W.  Keyse.  "  Didn't  you  'ear  me  sing  out  to  you  just 
now?" 

"  Come,  now,  what  were  you  up  to?"  the  Sergeant  pressed. 
"  Better  up  an'  own  it  if  you've  bin  asleep  on  guard." 

The  eager  faces  crowded  round.  The  object  of  interest  and 
comment,  not  at  all  sympathetic  or  polite,  was  a  stout,  respect- 
able tradesman,  with  a  large,  round,  ghastly  face,  who  saluted 
his  officer  with  a  trembling  hand. 

"I — I  have  been  the  victim  of  an  outrage,  sir!" 

"Sorry  to  hear  it;  what's  your  name?" 

"Brooker,  sir,"  volunteered  W.  Keyse's  Corporal.  "The 
other  sentry  we  put  on  with  Keyse  here." 

,     "  Mr.     Brooker,    sir,    General    Stores,     Market    Square,"; 
babbled  the  citizen. 

"  Well,  Private  Brooker,  what  have  you  to  say?  " 

"  I  have  been  drugged  or  hypnotized,  sir,  and  robbed  of 
my  gun  while  in  a  state  of  insensibility,  sir — upon  my  honour 
as  an  Alderman  and  Magistrate  of  this  borough!  Swear  me, 
sir,  if  you  have  any  doubt  of  my  veracity!"  He  flapped  his 
hands  like  fins,  and  his  bandolier  heaved  above  a  labouring 
bosom. 

The  Commander  of  the  picket  looked  preternaturally  grave. 

"  Very  sorry,  Private  Brooker,  but  unless  the  Sergeant  has 
brought  his  Testament  along,  you'll  have  to  give  your  informa- 
tion in  the  ordinary  way.  So  they  drugged  you  or  hypnotized 


164  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

you — or  both,  was  it? — and  took  away  your  rifle.     Of  course 
you  saw  it  done?  " 

"  No,  sir,  I  did  not  see  it  done.     When  I  woke  up  .   .  ." 

"  Ah,  when  you  woke  up !     Please  go  on." 

The  crowding  faces  of  B.S.A.  men  and  Town  Guardsmen 
were  grinning  now.  The  patrol-officer  was  rocking  in  his 
saddle. 

"  When  I  revived,  sir,  from  the  swoon  or  trance  .  .  ." 

"Very  good,  Private  Brooker;  we'll  hear  the  rest  of  that 
in  the  morning.  Sergeant,  relieve  these  sentries,  and  bring 
Private  Keyse  and  the  hypnotic  subject  before  me  in  the  morn- 
ing. Make  this  man  Brooker  a  prisoner  at  large  for  the 
present,  and  fall  in  the  picket." 

The  Sergeant  saluted.     "  Very  good,  sir." 

The  bubbling  Brooker  boiled  over  frothily  as  the  sentries 
were  changing. 

"A  prisoner!  Good  God!  do  they  take  me  for  a  traitor? 
A  Magistrate  ...  an  Alderman,  the  President  of  the  Gas 
Committee  .  .  ." 

"  I  should  'ave  guessed  you  to  be  that  if  I  'adn't  'card  it, 
sonny,"  said  the  Sergeant  dryly,  the  implied  sarcasm  provoking 
a  subdued  guffaw.  He  added,  as  the  visiting  patrol  rode  on 
and  the  picket  marched  back  to  the  Cemetery:  "Can't  re- 
lieve you  of  your  rifle,  because  you  'aven't  got  'er.  What  in 
'Eaven's  name  are  they  goin'  to  do  to  you?  Well,  you'll  find 
out  to-morrow.  Left  face;  quick  march!  " 

Counting  left-right,  and  keeping  elbow-touch  with  the  next 
man,  W.  Keyse  got  in  a  whisper: 

"  I  say,  Sergeant,  am  I  in  for  it  as  well  as  Ole  Bulgy 
Weskit?  You  might  as  well  let  me  know  and  charnce  it!  " 

The  Sergeant  answered  with  unfeeling  indifference: 

"  Since  you  ask,  I  should  say  you  was." 

"That's  a  bit  'ard!     Wot  '11  I  git?" 

"  Ten  to  one,  your  skater." 

"Wot  is  my  skater?" 

"Your  Corporal's  stripe,  you  suckin'  innocent!  Wot  for? 
For  takin'  a  Boer  spy  pris'ner — 'that's  wot  for!  " 

"C'ripps!"  said  W.  Keyse,  enlightened,  illuminated  and 
glowing  in  the  darkness.  He  added  a  moment  later,  in  rather 
a  depressed  tone :  "  But  it  was  'im,  the  civilian  bloke  with  the 
beard,  'oo  downed  the  Dutchy,  an'  sat  on  'im  till  the  guard 
come  up." 

The  Sergeant  was  ahead  of  the  half-company,  speaking  to 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  165 

the  officer  in  charge.  It  was  the  Corporal  who  answered, 
across  the  man  who  marched  upon  the  left  of  W.  Keyse: 

"  O'  course  it  was.  But  you  'ad  the  Dopper  fust,  and," 
he  cackled  quietly,  "  the  Colonel  won't  be  jealous." 

The  eyes  and  mouth  of  W.  Keyse  became  circular. 

"The  who?" 

"The  Colonel,  didn't  you  'ear  me  say?" 

"That  wasn't  never  .  .  .  'im?" 

"  All  right,  since  you  know  best.     But  him,  for  all  that!  " 

"  Cripps !  "  gasped  Billy  Keyse. 


XXIII 

You  are  to  imagine  Dawn,  trailing  weary-footed  over  the 
interminable  plain,  to  find  Gueldersdorp,  lonely  before,  and 
before  threatened,  now  isolated  like  some  undaunted  coral 
rock  in  mid-Pacific,  crested  with  screaming  sea-birds,  girt  with 
roaring  breakers,  set  in  the  midst  of  waters  haunted  by  myriads 
of  hungry  sharks.  Ringed  with  silent  menace,  she  squatted  on 
her  low  hill,  doggedly  waiting  the  event. 

It  was  known  that  on  the  previous  day  the  telegraph  wires 
north  of  Beaton  had  been  cut,  and  this  day  was  to  sever  the 
last  link  with  Cape  Town  at  Maripo,  some  forty  miles  south. 
The  railway  bridge  that  crossed  the  Olopo  River  might  go 
next.  Staat's  Engineers  had  been  busy  there  overnight. 
Rumour  had  it,  Heaven  knows  how,  that  the  armoured  train 
that  had  been  sent  up  from  the  Cape  with  two  light  guns  of 
superseded  pattern — a  generous  contribution  towards  the  col- 
lection of  obsolete  engines  now  bristling  from  the  sand-bagged 
ramparts — had  been  seized  by  a  commando,  with  the  officer 
and  the  men  in  charge.  This  was  to  be  confirmed  later  by  the 
arrival  of  an  engine-driver  minus  five  fingers  and  some  faith 
in  the  omnipotence  of  British  arms.  But  at  the  beginning  of 
this  chapter  he  was  hiding  in  a  sand-hole,  chewing  the  cud  of 
his  experience,  in  default  of  other  pabulum,  and  did  not  get 
in  before  dark  of  the  long  blazing  day. 

Crowds  gathered  on  the  barely-reclaimed  veld  at  the  north- 
ern end  of  the  town  to  see  the  Military  Executive  take  over 
the  Hospital.  But  that  the  streets  were  barricaded  with 
waggons  and  every  able-bodied  male  citizen  carried  a  rifle,  it 
might  have  been  mistaken  for  an  occasion  of  national  rejoic- 
ing or  civic  festivity.  The  leaves  of  the  pepper-trees  fringing 


1 66  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

the  thoroughfares  and  clumped  in  the  Market  Square  rustled 
in  the  faint  hot  breeze.  By-and-by  they  were  to  stand  scorched 
and  seared  and  naked  under  the  iron  hail  that  beat  in  blizzards 
upon  them,  and  die  in  the  noxious  lyddite  fumes  dispersed 
by  bursting  shells. 

The  variegated  crowd  cheered  as  the  Staff  dismounted  at 
the  white-painted  iron  gates  of  railed-in  Hospital  grounds.  It 
was  not  the  acclamation  of  admiration,  it  was  the  cheer  ex- 
pectant. They  wanted  to  know  what  this  man,  their  sole 
hope,  was  going  to  do.  Intolerable  suspense  racked  them. 
Wherever  it  was  known  that  he  would  be,  there  they  followed 
at  this  juncture — solid  masses  of  humanity,  bored  with  in- 
numerable ear-holes,  and  enamelled  with  patient,  glittering, 
expectant  eyes.  His  own  keen,  kindly  glance  swept  over  them 
as  he  touched  his  grey  felt  hat  in  acknowledgment  of  their 
dubious  greeting,  that  half-hearted  but  well-meant  cheer.  He 
read  the  mute  question  written  upon  all  their  faces:  What 
are  you  going  to  do?  Part  of  his  answer  to  the  interrogation 
was  standing  in  the  railway-yard,  but  they  would  have  to  wait 
a  little  while  longer  yet — just  a  little  longer.  He  whistled 
his  pleasant  melodious  little  tune  as  the  porter  hurried  to  open 
the  gates. 

One  pair  of  pale,  rather  ugly  eyes  in  the  crowd  were 
illumined  with  pure  hero-worship.  "  That's  5im,"  explained 
their  owner,  nudging  a  big  man  in  shabby  white  drill,  who 
was  shouldering  a  deliberate  way  through  the  press. 

"The  Colonel — and  ain't  'e  a  Regular  Oner!  Them  along 
of  'im — with  the  red  shoulder-straps  and  brown  leather  leg- 
gin's,  they're  cav'l'ry  Orficers  o'  the  Staff,  they  are.  An'  them 
others  in  khaki  with  putties — syme  as  wot  I've  got  on — they're 
the  Medical  Swells.  Military  Sawboneses — twig?  You  can 
tell  'em,  when  you're  near  enough,  by  the  bronze  badges  with 
a  serpint  climbin'  up  a  stick  inside  a  wreath  wot  they  'ave 
on  the  fronts  o'  their  caps  an'  on  their  jacket-collars,  an'  the 
instrument-cases  wot  they  carries  in  their  bres'  pockets.  I'm  a 
bit  in  the  know  about  these  things,  being  a  sort  of  Service 
man  meself." 

Thus  delicately  did  W.  Keyse  invite  comment.  Splendid 
additions  had  certainly  been  made  to  the  martial  outfit  of  the 
previous  day.  The  tweed  Norfolk  had  been  replaced  by  a 
khaki  jacket,  evidently  second-hand,  and  obligingly  taken  in 
by  the  lady  of  the  boarding-house.  A  Corporal's  stripe,  pur- 
chased from  a  trooper  of  the  B.S.A.,  who,  as  the  consequence 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  167 

of  over-indulgence  in  liquor  and  language,  had  one  to  sell,  bad- 
been  sewn  upon  the  sleeve.  The  original  owner  had  charged 
an  extra  tiklcie  for  doing  it,  and  it  burned  the  arm  that  bore 
it  like  a  vaccination  pustule  on  the  fifth  day. 

"  Being  a  sort  of  Service  man  meself,"  repeated  W.  Keyse. 
He  twitched  the  stripe  carelessly  into  sight.  "  C'manding 
orficer  marked  me  down  for  this  to-day,"  he  continued,  with 
elaborate  indifference,  "along  of  a  Favourable  Mention  in 
the  Cap'n's  Guard  Report.  Nothin'  much — a  little  turn- 
up with  a  'ulking  big  Dutch  bloke,  'oo  turned  out  to  be 
a  spy." 

In  the  act  of  feeling  for  the  invisible  moustache,  he  rec- 
ognized the  face  under  the  Panama  hat  worn  by  the  big  neigh- 
bour in  white  drill,  and  blushes  swamped  his  yellow  freckles. 
The  owner  of  that  square,  powerful  face,  no  longer  bloated 
and  crimson,  but  pale  and  drawn,  was  the  man  who  had 
stepped  in  to  the  rescue  at  the  Dutchman's  saloon-bar  on  the 
previous  day,  where  Fate  had  stage-managed  effects  so  badly 
that  the  heroic  leading  attitude  of  W.  Keyse  had  perforce 
given  place  to  the  minor  role  of  the  juvenile  walking-gentle- 
man. "Watto!"  he  began.  "It's  you,  mister!  I  bin  want- 
in*  to  say  thank "  But  a  surge  of  the  crowd  flattened 

W.  Keyse  against  the  green-painted  iron  railings  surrounding 
a  municipal  gum-tree,  and  the  big  man  was  lost  to  view. 
Perhaps  it  was  as  well  that  the  acquaintance  made  under  con- 
ditions remote  from  respectability  should  not  be  renewed.  But 
W.  Keyse  would  have  preferred  to  thank  the  rescuer. 

The  taking  over  of  the  Hospital  was  accomplished  in  a 
moment,  to  the  disappointment  of  the  ceremony-loving  Briton 
and  the  Colonial  of  British  race,  to  say  nothing  of  the  Kaffirs 
and  the  Barala,  who  anticipated  a  big  indaba.  The  little  party 
of  officers  in  khaki  walked  up  the  gravel-drive  between  thej 
carefully-tended  grass  plats  to  the  stoep  where  the  Mayor  of 
Gueldersdorp,  with  the  matron,  house-surgeon,  secretary,  and 
several  prominent  members  of  the  Committee — including 
Alderman  Brooker,  puffy-cheeked  and  yellow-eyed  for  lack  of 
a  night's  rest — waited.  Military  Authority  saluted  Civic 
Dignity,  shook  hands,  and  the  thing  was  done.  Inspection 
followed. 

"The  warr'ds."  The  Chief  Medical  Officer,  a  tall  raw- 
boned  personage,  very  evidently  hailed  from  North  of  the 
Tweed.  "  I'm  obliged  to  ye,  madam,"  he  addressed  the 
jflustered  matron,  "but  the  warr'ds  an'  the  contents  o'  the 


1 68  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

beds  in  them  are  no'  to  say  of  the  firr'st  importance — at  least, 
whaur  I'm  concerr'ned.  With  your  permeesion  we'll  talc'  a 
look  at  the  Operating  Theatre,  and  overhaul  the  sterileezing 
plant,  and  the  sanitary  arrangements,  and  maybe,  after  a  gliff 
at  the  kitchens,  there  would  be  a  moment  to  spend  in  ganging 
through  the  warr'ds.  Unless  the  Colonel  would  prefer  to 
begin  wi'  them?  "  He  turned  a  small,  twinkling  pair  of  blue 
eyes  set  in  dry  wrinkles  upon  his  Chief. 

"  Not  I,  Major.  This  is  your  department.  But  I  shall  ask 
five  minutes  more  grace  in  the  interests  of  the  friend  I  spoke 
of,  Dr.  Saxham,  with  whom  I  made  an  appointment  at  the 
half-hour." 

"  You're  no'  by  any  chance  meaning  the  Saxham  that  wrote 
'  The  Diseases  of  Civilization,'  are  ye,  Colonel  ?  I  mind  a 
sentence  in  it  that  must  have  been  a  douse  of  cauld  watter — 
toch!  vitriol  would  be  the  better  worr'd — in  the  faces  o'  some 
o'  the  dandy  operators.  '  Young  men,'  he  ca'ed  them,  as  if  he 
was  a  greybeard  himsel',  'young  men  who,  led  into  Surgery 
by  the  houp  o'  gains  an'  notoriety,  have  given  themselves  nae 
time  to  learn  its  scienteefic  principles — showy  operators,  who 
diagnose  wi'  the  knife  an'  endeavour  to  dictate  to  Nature  and 
no'  to  assist  her.'  And  yet  Saxham  could  daur !  '  I  shall 
prove  that  the  gastric  ulcer  can  be  cured  wi'out  exceesion,'  he 
said,  or  they  say  he  said  in  the  Lancet  report  o'  the  operation 
on  the  Grand  Duke  Waldimir — I  cam'  across  a  reprint  o'  it 
no'  lang  ago — when  Sir  Henry  McGavell  sent  for  him,  wi' 
the  sweat  o'  mortal  terror  soakin'  his  Gladstone  collar.  He 
cut  a  hole  in  the  Duke's  stomach,  ye  will  understand,  in  front 
o'  the  ulcer,  clipped  off  the  smaller  intesteene,  spliced  the  twa 
together  wi'  a  Collins  button,  and  by  a  successful  deveece  o' 
plumbing — naething  less — earned  the  eternal  gratitude  o'  the 
autocrat  an'  the  everlastin'  currses  o'  the  Nihilists.  All  that, 
seven  years  ago,  an'  the  thing  is  dune  the  day  wi'oot  a  hair's- 
breadth  difference.  For  why?  Ye  canna  paint  the  lily,  or 
improve  upon  perfection.  Toch!  .  .  .  Colonel,  that  man 
would  be  worth  the  waitin'  for,  if  he  stood  in  your  friend's 
shoes  the  day! " 

"  Rejoice  then,  Major,  and  be  exceeding  glad,  for  I  believe 
this  is  the  man  who  wrote  the  book  and  plugged — or  was  it 
plumbed — the  potentate." 

The  Chief  Medical  Officer  rubbed  his  hands.  "  I  promise 
myself  a  crack  or  twa  wi'  him,  then.  .  .  .  But  how  is  it  a 
busy  chiel  like  that  can  get  awa'  from  his  private  patients 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  169 

and  his  Hospital  warr'ds  in  the  London  Winter  Season? 
Ahem !  ahem !  " 

By  the  haste  the  Medical  Officer  developed  in  changing 
the  conversation,  it  was  plain  that  he  had  recalled  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  the  "  busy  chiel "  had  turned  his 
back  upon  the  private  patients  and  the  Hospital  wards. 
"  Colonel,"  he  went  on,  "  I  could  be  wishing  this  varry  creedit- 
able-appearing  institution — judging  from  the  ootside  o't — were 
twice  as  big  as  it  is,  wi'  maybe  an  Annexe  or  so  to  the  back  of 
that." 

"  My  dear  Major,  I  never  knew  you  really  satisfied  and 
happy  but  once,  and  that  was  when  we  had  fifty  men  down 
writh  dysentery  and  fever  in  a  tin-roofed  railway  goods-shed, 
and  a  hundred  and  seventy  more  under  leaky  canvas,  and 
you  were  out  of  chlorodyne  and  quinine,  and  could  get  no 
milk." 

"  That  goes  to  prove  the  eleementary  difference  between  the 
male  an'  the  female  character.  A  man  will  no'  keep  on  dither- 
ing for  what  he  kens  he  canna'  get.  A  woman,  especially  a 

young  an'  pretty "  He  broke  off  to  say:  "Toch!  will 

ye  hark  to  Beauvayse!  The  very  name  of  the  sex  sets  that 
lad  rampaging." 

"  Beautiful !  I  tell  you,  sir,"  the  handsome,  fair-haired 
young  aide-de-camp  was  emphatically  assuring  that  stout, 
rubicund  personage,  the  Mayor,  "  the  loveliest  girl  I  ever  saw 
in  my  life,  or  ever  shall  see — bar  none !  I  saw  her  first  on  the 
Recreation  Ground,  the  day  some  Boer  blackguards  insulted 
some  nuns  who  were  in  charge  of  a  ladies'  school,  and  to-day 
she  passed  with  two  other  Sisters  of  Mercy,  and  I  touched  my 
hat  to  her  as  the  Staff  dismounted  at  the  gate." 

"  Another  rara  avis,  Beau  ?  "  the  Colonel  called  across  the 
intervening  group  of  talkers.  The  group  of  khaki-clad  figures 
separated,  and  turned  first  to  the  Chief,  then  to  the  bright- 
eyed,  bright-faced  enthusiast.  White  teeth  flashed  in  tanned 
faces,  chaff  began. 

"In  love  again,  for  the  first  and  only  time,  Toby?" 

"  Since  he  lost  his  heart  to  Miss  What's-her-name,  that 
pretty  '  Jollity '  girl,  with  the  double-barrelled  repeating  wink, 
and  the  postcard  grin." 

"  Don't  forget  the  velvet-voiced  beauty  of  the  dark,  moon- 
less night  on  the  Cape  Town  Hotel  veranda." 

"She  turned  out  to  be  a  Hottentot  lady,  didn't  she?" 

"  Cavalry  Problem  No.  I.     Put  yourself  in  Lieutenant  the 


170  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

Right  Hon.  Viscount  Beauvayse's  place,  and  give  in  detail  the 
precautions  you  would  have  taken  to  insure  the  transport  of 
your  heart  uninjured  from  the  Staff  Headquarters  to  the  Hos- 
pital Gate.  Show  on  the  map  the  disposition  of  the  enemy, 
whether  desirous  to  enslave,  or  likely  to  be  mashed.  .  .  ." 

"  She  was  neither,"  the  crimson  boy  declared.  "  She  was 
simply  a  lady,  quiet  and  high-bred  and  simple  enough  to  have 
been  a  Princess  of  the  Blood,  or  to  look  a  fellow  in  the  face  and 
pass  him  by  without  the  slightest  idea — I'd  swear  to  it — that 
she'd  fairly  taken  his  breath  away." 

"  My  dear  Lord !  "  The  Mayor  took  a  great  deal  of  com- 
ifort  out  of  a  title.  "  Attractive  the  young  lady  is,  I  certainly 
admit,  and  my  wife  is — I  may  say  the  word — enthusiastic  in 
her  praise.  But  you  go  one,  or  half  a  dozen,  better  than  Mrs. 
Greening,  who  will  be  perfectly  willing,  I  don't  doubt,  to  in- 
troduce you,  unless  the  Colonel  entertains  objections  .  .  ." 

"To  Staff  flirtations?  Regard  'em  as  inevitable,  Mr. 
Mayor,  like  Indian  prickly-heat,  or  fever  here.  And  probably 
the  best  cure  for  the  complaint  in  the  present  instance  would 
be  to  meet  the  cause  of  it." 

"  Judge  for  yourself,  Colonel ;  you've  first-class  long-distance 
eyesight."  There  was  a  ring  of  defiance  in  the  boy's  fresh 
voice.  "  You've  seen  her  before,  and  it  isn't  the  kind  of  face 
one  forgets.  Here  they  are  .  .  .  here  she  is  now,  coming 
back,  with  the  other  ladies.  The  railing  spoils  one's  view,  but 
the  gates  are  open,  and  in  another  moment  you'll  see  her  pass 
them." 

The  Chief  moved  to  the  front  of  the  stoep  where  the  Staff 
had  congregated.  Men  quietly  fell  aside,  making  place  for 
him,  so  that  he  stood  with  Beauvayse,  in  a  clear  half-circle, 
ringed  with  a  circle  of  neutral  Service  browns  and  drabs  and 
umbers,  waiting  until  the  three  figures  should  pass  across  the 
open  space.  One  or  two  Staff  eyeglasses  went  up.  The 
Chief  Medical  Officer  removed  and  wiped  his  steel-rimmed 
eyeglasses  before  replacing  them  on  his  bony  aquiline  nose. 

They  came  and  passed — the  white  figure  and  the  two  black 
ones.  Of  these  one  was  very  tall,  one  short  and  dumpy — 
veiled  and  mantled,  their  hands  hidden  in  their  ample  sleeves, 
they  went  by  with  their  eyes  upon  the  ground.  But  the  girl 
with  them — a  slight,  willowy  creature  in  a  creamy,  cambric 
dress,  a  wide  hat  of  black  transparent  material,  frilled  and 
bowed  upon  her  dead-leaf  coloured  hair,  and  tied  by  wide 
strings  of  muslin  under  her  delicate  round  chin — looked  with 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  171 

innocent,  candid  interest  at  the  group  of  men  outside  the  Hos- 
pital. The  tanned  faces,  the  simple  workmanlike  Service  dress, 
setting  off  the  well-knit,  alert  figures,  the  quiet,  soldierly  bear- 
ing, even  the  distant  sound  of  the  well-bred  voices,  pleased  her, 
even  as  the  whiff  of  cigars  and  Russian  leather  that  the  breeze 
brought  down  from  the  stoep  struck  some  latent  chord  of  sub- 
conscious memory,  and  brought  a  puzzled  little  frown  between 
the  delicately-drawn  dark  eyebrows  arching  over  black-lashed 
golden  hazel  eyes.  And  cognizant  of  every  fleeting  change  of 
expression  in  those  lovely  eyes,  the  taller  of  her  two  companions 
thought,  with  a  stab  of  pain: 

"  Your  father  was  that  man's  friend,  and  the  comrade  of 
others  like  him." 

"  Now,  then ! "  challenged  Beauvayse,  as  the  three  figures 
moved  out  of  sight. 

"  The  '  Girl  With  the  Golden  Eyes  '?  "  said  somebody. 

"  You  wouldn't  speak  of  her  in  the  same  breath  with  that 
brainless  beast  of  Balzac's,  hang  it  all ! "  expostulated  the 
champion.  He  turned  eagerly  to  the  Colonel.  "  Now  you've 
seen  her,  sir,  would  you?" 

"  Not  exactly.  And  I'm  bound  to  say,  I  regard  your  claim 
to  possession  of  a  good  taste  as  completely  established.  .  .  . 
'Ware  the  horse,  there!  Look  out!  look  out!"  His  eyes 
had  followed  the  tall  figure  of  the  Mother-Superior,  moving 
with  the  superlative  grace  and  ease  that  comes  of  perfect 
physical  proportion,  carrying  the  black  nun's  robes,  wearing 
the  flowing  veil  of  the  nun  with  the  dignity  of  an  ideal  queen. 
And  even  as  he  looked,  his  charger,  held  with  some  others  by  a 
mounted  orderly  before  the  gates,  and  rendered  nervous  by 
the  presence  of  the  crowd,  shied  at  the  towering  panache  of 
imitation  grass-made  ostrich  feathers  trailing  from  the  aged 
and  crownless  pot-hat  worn  by  a  headman  of  the  Barala  in 
holiday  attire,  jerked  the  bridle  from  the  hand  of  the  trooper, 
and  backed,  rearing,  in  the  direction  of  the  three  women  pass- 
ing on  the  sidewalk.  The  other  horses  shied,  frustrating  the 
efforts  of  the  orderly  to  catch  the  flying  bridle,  and  the  danger 
from  the  huge,  towering  brown  body  and  dangling  iron-shod 
hoofs  was  very  real,  seemed  inevitable,  when  a  man  in  white 
drill  and  wearing  a  Panama  hat  ran  out  of  the  crowd,  sprang 
up  and  deftly  caught  the  loose  bridoon-rein,  mastered  the 
frightened  beast,  and  dragged  it  back  into  the  roadway,  in 
time  to  avert  harm. 

"  Cleverly  done,  but  a  close  thing,"  the  Chief  said,  as  he 


172  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

turned  away.  "/  wish  I  had  had  that  fellow's  chance!"  was 
written  in  Beauvayse's  face.  To  have  won  a  look  of  gratitude 
from  those  wonderful  black-fringed  eyes,  brought  a  flush  of 
admiration  into  those  white-rose  cheeks,  would  have  been 
worth  while.  The  slight,  tall,  girlish  figure  in  its  dainty 
creamy  draperies  had  passed  out  of  sight  now  between  its  two 
black-robed  guardians.  And  had  not  Luck,  that  mutable- 
minded  deity,  given  the  golden  chance  to  a  hulking  stranger 
in  white  drill,  his,  Beauvayse's,  might  have  been  the  hand  to 
intervene  in  the  matter  of  the  Colonel's  restive  charger,  and 
the  ears  to  hear  her  thanks. 

If  he  had  known  that  her  eyes  had  been  too  full  of  his  own 
resplendent  virile,  glowing  young  personality  to  even  see  the 
man  who  had  stepped  in  between  her  and  possible  danger! 
The  most  innocent  girl  will  have  her  ideal  of  a  lover  and 
thrill  at  the  imagined  touch,  and  furnish  the  dumb  image  with 
a  dream-voice  that,  woos  her  in  impossible,  elaborate,  impas- 
sioned sentences,  very  unlike  the  real  utterances  of  Love  when 
he  comes.  The  blue-eyed,  ruddy-cheeked,  golden-locked  St. 
Michael  portrayed  in  celestial-martial  splendour  upon  one  of 
the  panels  of  the  triptych  over  the  altar  in  the  Convent  chapel 
had,  as  he  bent  stern  young  brows  over  the  writhing  demon 
with  the  vainly-enveloping  snake-folds,  something  of  the  young 
soldier's  look,  it  seemed  to  Lynette.  Ridiculous  and  profane, 
Sister  Cleophee  or  Sister  Ruperta  would  have  said,  to  liken 
a  handsome,  stupid,  young  Lieutenant  of  Hussars  to  the  im- 
mortal Captain  of  the  Armies  of  Heaven. 

But  she  knew  another  who  would  understand.  There  was 
no  flaw  in  the  perfect  sympathy  that  maintained  between 
Lynette  and  the  Mother-Superior,  though,  certainly,  since  the 
Colonel's  visit  of  the  previous  day,  the  Mother  had  seemed 
strangely  preoccupied  and  sad.  .  .  .  Her  good-night  kiss,  in- 
variably so  warm  and  tender,  had  been  the  merest  brush  of  lips 
against  the  girl's  soft  cheek;  her  good-morning  had  been  even 
more  perfunctory;  her  eyes,  those  great  maternal  radiances, 
turned  their  light  elsewhere.  Unloved  and  neglected,  the  Con- 
vent's spoiled  darling  hugged  her  abandonment,  weaving  a 
very  pretty,  ineffably  silly  romance,  in  which  a  noble  and 
beautiful  young  Hussar  lover,  suddenly  appearing  over  the 
corrugated-iron  fence  of  the  tennis-ground,  the  foliage  of  its 
fringe  of  pepper-trees  waving  in  the  night-breeze,  knelt — no, 
nobody  ever  knelt  now,  out  of  Scott's  novels  or  Sheridan's 
plays — strode  towards  the  slender-built  figure  leaning  from 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  173 

her  chamber-casement,  whispering,  with  outstretched  hands 
and  eyes  that  gleamed  through  the  darkness: 

"  Open  the  door!  Do  you  hear,  you  Kid?  Open  the 
door!  " 

Her  heart  went  heavily,  and  seemed  to  stop.  A  cotd 
breath  seemed  to  blow  upon  the  little  silken  hair-tendrils  at 
the  nape  of  her  white  neck,  spreading  a  creeping,  stiffening 
horror  through  her  body,  deadening  sensation,  paralyzing  every 
limb. 

The  close  approach  of  any  man,  even  the  thought  of  such 
contact,  turned  her  deadly  faint,  checked  her  pulses,  stopped 
her  breath.  At  picnics  and  parties  and  dances  to  which  the 
Mayor's  wife  or  the  mothers  of  some  of  the  pupils  would  in- 
vite or  chaperon  her,  her  vivid,  delicate,  fragile  beauty  would 
draw  first  men's  eyes,  and  then  their  owners,  not  all  unhand- 
some or  undesirable,  while  showier  girls  looked  in  vain  for 
partners  or  companions.  The  little  triumph,  the  consciousness 
of  being  admired  and  sought  after,  would  quicken  Lynette's 
pulses,  and  heighten  the  radiance  of  her  eyes,  and  lend  anima- 
tion to  her  girlish  chatter  and  gaiety  to  her  laughter — at  first. 
Then  some  over-bold  advance,  some  hot  look  or  whispered 
word,  would  bring  quick  recollection  leaping  into  the  lovely 
eyes,  and  drive  the  vivid  colour  from  the  virginal  undine  face, 
and  stamp  the  smiling  mouth  into  pale,  breathless  lines  of 
Fear.  That  night  in  the  tavern  on  the  veld  had  branded  a 
child  with  premature  knowledge  of  the  incarnate  ravening, 
devouring  Beast  that  lies  in  Man  concealed.  She  felt  the 
scorching  breath  of  lust  upon  her;  she  quailed  under  the  in- 
tolerable touch ;  she  shook  like  a  reed  in  the  brutal  hands  of 
the  evil,  dominating  power  that  would  brook  no  resistance 
and  knew  no  mercy.  The  horrible  obsession  came  upon  her 
now,  as  ever,  stronger  for  those  moments  of  forgetfulness: 

"Clang — clang — clang!  " 

The  little  Irish  novice  had  rung  the  Chapel-bell  for  Sext 
and  None.  She  could  hear,  from  the  nuns'  end  of  the  big 
rambling,  two-storied  house,  the  rustling  habits  sweeping  along 
the  passage.  She  hurried  to  the  dt>or,  and  tore  it  open,  and 
ran  as  though  that  ravening  breath  had  been  hot  upon  her 
neck,  saw  the  dear  black  figure  of  the  Mother  sweeping  toward 
her,  and  rushed  into  the  arms  that  were  held  out,  and  hid 
from  that  burning,  scorching,  hideous  memory  in  the  bosom 
that  dead  Richard  Mildare  had  turned  from  in  his  blindness. 

Just    as   Beauvayse,    stimulated   by   the   recollection   of   the 


174  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

Mayor's  promise  to  introduce  him  to  the  loveliest  girl  he 
had  ever  seen  in  his  life,  or  ever  should  see,  mentally  registered 
a  vow  that  he  would  keep  the  old  buffer  up  to  that,  by  listen- 
ing to  his  interminable  hunting-stories,  and  laughing  at  his 
venerable  jokes,  to  tears  if  necessary.  Love,  like  War,  sharp- 
ened a  fellow's  faculties. 

"  It's  rum  to  reflect,"  Beauvayse  said,  conscious  of  per- 
petrating an  epigram,  "  that  from  time  immemorial  the  fellow 
who  wants  to  make  up  to  a  young  woman  has  always  had  to 
begin  by  getting  round  an  old  man." 

He  looked  round  for  the  old  man,  whom  the  title  would  have 
estranged  for  ever.  He  had  buttonholed  the  Chief,  and  was 
gassing  away — joy! — upon  the  very  subject. 

"  I  fancy  the  ladies  of  the  Convent  who  occasionally  visit 
the  Hospital  were  coming  in  at  this  gate.  The  short  nun, 
I  noticed,  had  a  little  basket  in  her  hand.  Probably  they 
went  round  to  the  side  entrance,  seeing  the — ha,  ha! — the 
stoep  garrisoned  by  Her  Majesty's  Imperial  Forces.  Cer- 
tainly. .  .  .  Without  doubt.  We  respect  the  Mother- 
Superior  highly.  A  most  gifted,  most  estimable  person  in 
every  way,  if  rather  stern  and  reserved.  .  .  .  Unapproachable, 
my  wife  calls  her.  But  Miss  Mildare,  her  ward " 


XXIV 

"  Miss  MILDARE  !  " 

The  Chief's  keen  eyes  had  lightened  suddenly.  The  whole 
face  had  darkened  and  narrowed,  and  the  clipped  brown 
moustache  lost  its  smiling  curve,  and  straightened  into  a  hard 
line. 

"Miss  Mildare? " 

"  Why,  yes,  that  is  her  name.  .  .  .  An  orphan,  I  have  heard, 
and  with  no  living  relatives.  But  she  seems  happy  enough  at 
the  Convent,  judging  by  what  Mrs.  Greening  says." 

The  hearer  experienced  a  momentary  feeling  of  relief  and 
of  anger — relief  to  think  that  dead  Dick  Mildare's  daughter 
should  have  found  refuge  in  such  a  woman's  heart ;  anger  that 
the  woman  should  have  concealed  from  him  the  girl's  identity, 
knowing  her  the  object  of  his  own  anxious  search. 

Then  he  understood.  His  anger  died  as  suddenly  as  it 
had  been  kindled.  He  recalled  something  that  he  had  seen 
when  the  rearing  horse  had  inclined  perilously  towards  the 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  175 

footway — that  protecting  maternal  gesture,  that  swift  inter- 
position of  the  tall,  active,  black-robed  figure  beween  the 
white-clad,  flower-faced,  girlish  creature  and  those  threaten- 
ing iron-shod  hoofs.  .  .  . 

"  She  loves  the  girl — Dick  Mildare's  daughter  by  the 
woman-friend  who  stole  him  from  her.  Is  there  a  doubt? 
With  poor  little  Lady  Lucy  Hawting's  willowy  figure  and  the 
same  nymph-like  droop  of  the  little  head,  \vith  its  rich  twists 
and  coils  of  dead-leaf-coloured  hair,  shaded  by  the  big  black 
hat.  That  woman  has  taken  her  to  her  heart,  however  she 
came  by  her;  the  uprooting  would  be  agony,  stern,  proud, 
tender  creature  that  she  is!  I  suppose  she  will  be  doing 
thundering  penance  for  not  having  told  me,  a  fellow  who 
simply  walked  into  the  place  and  assegaied  her  with  my  death- 
news.  Here's  a  marrowy  bone  of  gossip  Lady  Hannah  shall 
never  crack.  And  yet  I  wouldn't  swear  there's  not  an  angel 
husked  inside  that  dried-up  little  chrysalis.  For  God  made  all 
women,  though  He  only  turned  out  a  few  of  'em  perfect,  and 
some  only  just  a  little  better  than  the  ruck." 

He  roused  himself  from  the  brown  study  that  brought  into 
relief  many  lurking  lines  and  furrows  in  the  thin,  keen  face, 
as  the  Chief  Medical  Officer,  fixing,  him  through  suspicious 
eyeglasses,  demanded : 

"  Ye  got  your  full  allowance  o'  sleep  last  nicht  ?  " 

He  nodded. 

"  Thanks  to  a  Cockney  babe  in  bandoliers,  who  was  born 
not  only  with  eyes  and  ears,  like  other  infants,  but  with  the 
capacity  for  using  'em." 

"  Ay.  It's  remarr'kable  how  many  men  will  daudle  com- 
placently through  life,  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  wi'out 
the  remotest  consciousness  that  they're  practically  blind  and 
no  better  than  deaf,  as  far  as  regards  rea.1  seeing  and  hearing. 
But  who's  your  prodeegy?" 

"  One  of  Panizzi's  Town  Guardsmen.  They  put  him  on  at 
the  Convent  with  another  sentry,  their  first  experience  of  a 
night  on  guard.  By  not  being  in  a  hurry  to  challenge,  and 
keeping  his  ears  open  while  a  conversation  of  the  confidentially- 
affectionate  kind  was  going  on  between  a  Dutchman — a  fellow 
employed  in  the  booking-office  at  the  railway,  on  whom  I've 
had  my  eye  for  some  little  time  past — and  his  sweetheart,  my 
townie  found  out  for  himself  something  that  most  of  us  knew 
before,  and  something  else  that  we  wanted  to  know  particularly 
badly.  .  .  ." 


176  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

"Namely?" 

"  For  one  thing,  that  the  town  is  a  hotbed  of  spies,  and  that 
our  friends  in  laager  outside  are  nightly  communicated  with 
by  means  of  flash-signals." 

"  And  that's  an  indeesputable  fact.  Toch ! "  No  other 
combination  of  letters  may  convey  the  guttural,  "  Have  I  no' 
seen  the  lamps  at  warr'k  mysel',  after  darr'k,  at  the  end  o' 
the  roads  that  debouch  upon  the  veld !  The  Dutchman  would 
be  able  to  plead  precedent,  I'm  thinking." 

"  He  will  have  plenty  of  time  to  think  where  he  is  at 
present.  When  the  sentry  interfered  he  was  instructing  the 
young  woman  in  a  simple  but  effective  code  of  match-flare 
signals,  by  means  of  which  she  was  to  communicate  with  him 
when  he  had  cleared  out.  And  he  had  announced  his  inten- 
tion of  doing  that  without  delay." 

"  An'  skipping  to  his  freends  upo'  the  Borr'der.  .  .  . 
Toch !  "  The  network  of  wrinkles  tightened  about  the  sharp 
little  blue-grey  eyes  of  the  Chief  Medical  Officer.  "  That 
would  gie  a  thochtfu'  man  a  kind  o'  notion  that  a  reese  in  the 
temperature  may  be  expectit  shortly.  An'  so  you — slept 
soundly  on  the  strength  o'  many  wakeful  nichts  to  come?  Ay, 
that  would  be  the  kind  o'  information  ye  were  badly  wanting!  " 

"  You're  wrong,  Major.  The  bit  of  information  was  this 
— from  the  spy  to  his  friends  outside:  'A^o — news — to- 
night' "  The  keen  hazel  eyes  conveyed  something  into  the 
Northern  blue  ones  that  was  not  said  in  words :  ' '  No  news 
to-night.'  And  the  sender  of  that  message  was  a  railway 
man." 

The  wiry  hairs  of  the  Chief  Medical  Officer's  red  moustache 
bristled  like  a  cat's. 

"  Toch,  Colonel,  you  will  have  reason  to  be  considering  me 
dull  in  the  uptake,  but  I  see  through  the  mud  wall  now.  And 
so  the  knowledge  that  ye  have  no  equal  at  hiding  your  deeds  o' 
darkness  even  in  the  licht  o'  the  railway-yard  was  as  good  to 
ye  as  Daffy's  Elixir.  And  when  micht  we  reckon  on  getting 
notification  from  what  I  may  presume  to  ca'  your  double  sur- 
preese-packet  ?  " 

He  looked  at  his  watch — a  well-used  Waterbury,  worn  in 
a  leather  strap  upon  his  wrist. 

"  Ten  o'clock.  At  a  quarter  past  eleven  I  think  we  may 
count  upon  something.  The  driver  of  Engine  123  has  given 
me  the  word  of  an  Irishman  from  County  Kildare;  and  the 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  177 

stoker,  a  Cardiff  man,  and  the  guard,  who  hails  from  Shore- 
ditch,  are  quite  as  keen  as  Kildare." 

"  You're  sending  the  stuff  up  North  ?  " 

"  In  the  direction  of  the  railway-bridge  they're  busy  wreck- 
ing, in  the  hope  that  it  may  come  in  useful." 

"  Weel,  I  will  gie  ye  the  guid  wish  that  the  affair  may  go 
off  exactly  as  ye  are  hoping." 

"Thanks,  Major!  You  could  hardly  word  the  sentence 
more  happily." 

They  exchanged  a  laugh  as  the  Mayor  bustled  up,  rubi- 
cund, important,  and  with  a  Member  of  the  Committee  to 
introduce. 

"  Colonel,  you'll  permit  me  to  present  Alderman  Brooker, 
one  of  our  most  energetic  and  valued  townsmen,  President 
of  the  Gas  Committee,  and  an  Assistant  Borough  Magistrate. 
One  of  Major  Panizzi's  Town  Guardsmen.  Was  on  sentry- 
go  last  night  not  far  from  here,  and  had  a  most  extraordinary 
experience.  Worth  your  hearing,  if  you  can  spare  time  to 
listen  to  my  friend's  account  of  it." 

"  With  pleasure,  Mr.  Mayor." 

Brooker,  a  stout  and  flabby  man,  with  pouches  under 
biliously  tinged  eyes,  bowed  and  broke  into  a  violent  per- 
spiration, not  wholly  due  to  the  shiny  black  frock-coat  suit  of 
broadcloth  donned  for  the  occasion. 

"  Sir,  I  humbly  venture  to  submit  that  I  have  been  the 
victim  of  a  conspiracy!" 

"Indeed?     Step  this  way,  Mr.  Brooker." 

Brooker,  soothed  by  the  courteous  affability  of  the  reception, 
his  sense  of  importance  magnified  by  being  led  aside,  apart 
from  the  others,  into  the  official  privacy  of  the  stoep-corner, 
began  to  be  eloquent.  He  knew,  he  said,  that  the  story  he  had 
to  relate  would  appear  almost  incredible,  but  a  soldier,  a  diplo- 
mat, a  master  of  strategy,  such  as  the  personage  to  whom  he 
now  addressed  himself,  would  understand — none  better — how 
to  unravel  the  tangled  web,  and  follow  up  the  clue  to  its 
ending  in  a  den  of  secret,  black,  and  midnight  conspiracy.  A 
blob  of  foam  appeared  upon  his  under-lip.  He  waved  his 
hands,  thick,  short-fingered,  clammy  members.  .  .  . 

"  My  story  is  as  follows,  sir.  .  .  ." 

"  I  shall  have  pleasure  in  listening  to  it,  Mr.  Brooker,  on 
condition  that  you  will  do  me  first  the  favour  of  listening  to 
a  story  of  mine?  " 


1 78  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

Deferred  Brooker  protested  willingness. 

"  Last  night,  Mr.  Brooker,  at  about  eleven-thirty  or  a 
quarter  to  twelve,  I  was  returning  from  a  little  tour  of  in- 
spection " — the  slight  riding  sjambok  he  carried  pointed  over 
the  veld  to  the  northward — "  out  there,  when,  passing  the 
south  angle  of  the  enclosure  of  the  Convent,  where,  by  my 
special  orders,  a  double  sentry  of  the  Town  Guard  had 
been  posted,  I  heard  a  sound  that  I  will  endeavour  to  repro- 
duce." 

" Gr'rumph!     Honk'k!     Gr'rumph!" 

Brooker  bounded  in  his  Oxford  shoes. 

The  face  upon  which  he  glued  his  bulging  eyes  was  grave  to 
Sternness.  He  stuttered,  interrogated  by  the  judicial  glance: 

"  It — arah ! — it  sounds  something  like  a  snore." 

"  It  was  a  snore,  Mr.  Brooker,  and  it  proceeded  from  one 
of  the  sentries  upon  guard." 

"  Sir  ...  I  ...  I  can  expl " 

"  Oblige  me  by  not  interrupting,  Mr.  Brooker.  This  sentry 
sat  upon  a  short  post,  his  back  fitted  comfortably  into  an 
angle  of  the  Convent  fence,  his  head  thrown  back,  and  his 
mouth  wide  open.  From  it,  or  from  the  organ  immediately 
above,  the  snore  proceeded.  He  was  having  a  capital  night's 
rest — in  the  Service  of  his  Country.  And  as  I  halted  in  front 
of  him,  fixing  upon  him  a  gaze  which  was  coldly  observant,  he 
shivered  and  ceased  to  snore,  and  said " : — the  wretched 
Brooker  heard  his  own  voice,  rendered  with  marvellous  fidelity, 
speaking  in  the  muffled  tone  of  the  sleeper — "" '  Annie,  it's 
damned  cold  to-night;  and  you've  got  all  the  blanket'" 

"Sir  .  .  .  sir!"  The  stricken  Brooker  babbled  hideously. 
..."  Colonel  .  .  .  for  mercy's  sake !  .  .  ." 

"  I  could  not  oblige  the  gentleman  with  a  blanket,  Mr. 
Brooker,  but  I  relieved  him  of  his  rifle  and  left  him,  to  tell 
his  picket  a  cock-and-bull  story  of  having  been  drugged  and 
hypnotized  by  Boer  spies.  And — I  will  overlook  it  upon  the 
present,  occasion,  but  in  War-time,  Mr.  Brooker,  men  have  been 
shot  for  less.  I  think  I  need  not  detain  you  further.  Your 
rifle  has  been  sent  to  your  headquarters — with  my  card  and  an 
explanation.  One  word  more,  Mr.  Brooker " 

Brooker,  grey,  streaky,  and  desperate,  wretched,  was  blind 
to  the  laughter  brimming  the  odd  keen  hazel  eyes. 

"  I  am  entrusted  by  the  Imperial  Government  with  the 
preservation  of  Public  Morality  in  Gueldersdorp,  as  well  as 
with  the  maintenance  of  the  Public  Safety — ami  I  should  be 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  179 

glad  of  an  assurance  from  you  that  Mrs.  Brooker's  Christian 
name  is  really  Annie?  " 

"I— I  swear  it,  Colonel!" 

Brooker  fled,  leaving  the  preserver  of  public  morality  to 
have  his  laugh  out  before  he  rejoined  the  Staff,  glancing  at 
the  Waterbury  in  the  shabby  wristlet.  Half-past  ten.  Would 
the  Dop  Doctor  turn  up  to  appointment,  or  had  the  battle 
with  habit  and  the  deadly  craving  born  of  indulgence  ended  in 
defeat?  As  his  eyes  moved  from  the  dial,  they  lighted  upon 
the  man — •"  Clothed  and  in  his  right  mind^  .  .  ."  His  own 
words  of  the  night  before  recurred  to  memory  as  he  came 
forward  with  his  long,  light  step,  greeting  the  new-comer  with 
the  easy,  cordial  grace  of  high-breeding. 

"  Ah,  Dr.  Saxham,  obliged  to  you  for  being  punctual.  Let 
me  introduce  you  to  Major  Lord  Henry  Leighbury,  D.S.O., 
Grenadier  Guards,  our  D.A.A.G.  Dr.  Saxham,  Colonel 
Ware,  Baraland  Rifles,  and  Sir  George  Wendysh,  Wessex 
Regiment,  commanding  the  Irregular  Horse;  Captain  Bingham 
Wrynche,  Royal  Bay  Dragoons,  my  senior  aide-de-camp,  and 
his  junior,  Lieutenant  Lord  Beauvayse,  of  the  Grey  Hussars. 
And  Dr.  Saxham,  Major  Taggart,  R.A.M.C.,  our  Chief 
Medical  Officer." 

He  watched  the  man  keenly  as  he  made  the  introductions, 
saying  to  himself  that  this  was  immeasurably  better  than  he 
had  hoped.  For  one  thing,  he  was  both  distinctive  and  dis- 
tinguished. The  ragged  black  moustache  had  been  shaved 
away;  the  frayed  but  spotless  suit  of  white  drill  fitted  the 
heavy-shouldered,  thin-flanked,  muscular  figure  perefctly;  the 
faded  blue  flannel  shirt,  with  the  white  double  collar  and 
narrow  black  tie ;  the  shabby  black  kamarband  about  his  waist, 
the  black-ribboned  Panama,  maintaining  respectability  in  ex- 
tremest  old  age,  as  that  expensive  but  lasting  headgear  is  wont 
to  do,  possessed,  as  worn  by  this  man,  a  certain  cachet  of  style. 
His  slight,  curt,  almost  frowning  salutations  displayed  a  well- 
graduated  recognition  of  the  official  status  of  each  individual 
to  whom  he  was  made  known,  betokening  the  man  accustomed 
to  move  in  circles  where  such  knowledge  and  the  application 
of  it  was  indispensable,  and  who  knew,  too,  that  slight  from 
him  would  have  given  chagrin.  But  another  moment,  and  the 
junior  Medical  Officer,  a  blackavised  little  Irishman  from 
County  Meath,  gripped  him  by  both  hands,  and  was  exclaim- 
ing in  his  juicy  brogue,  real  delight  beaming  in  his  round, 
rosy  face: 


i&>  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"  Saxham !  Saxham  of  St.  Stephens,  and  the  grand  ould 
days!  Deny  me  now,  to  my  face.  Say,  'Tom  McFadyen, 
I  don't  know  you,'  if  you  dare." 

The  blue  eyes  shone  out  vivid  gentian-colour  in  the  kindly 
smile  that  illumined  them,  the  stern  lips  parted  in  a  laugh 
that  showed  the  sound  white  closely-set  teeth. 

"  Tom  McFadyen,  I  do  know  you.  But  if  you  offer  to  pay 
me  that  cab-fare  you  owe  me,  I  shall  say  I'm  wrong,  and 
that  it's  another  man." 

"  Hould  your  tongue,  jewel,"  drolled  the  little  junior,  who 
delighted  in  exaggerating  the  brogue  that  tripped  naturally 
off  his  Irish  tongue.  "  Don't  be  after  giving  me  away  to  the 
Chief  and  the  Senior  that  believe  me,  by  me  own  account,  to 
be  descended  from  Ollamh  Fodla,  that  was  King  of  Tara,  and 
owned  the  cow-grazing  from  Trim  to  Athboy,  and  ate  boiled 
turnips  off  shields  of  gold  before  potatoes  were  invented,  when 
the  bog-oaks  were  growing  as  acorns  on  the  tree.  And  as  to 
the  cab-fare,  sure  I  hailed  the  hansom  out  of  politeness  to  your 
honour's  glory,  the  day  that  saw  me  going  off  to  the  Army 
Medical  School  at  Netley,  wid  all  my  worldly  belongin's  in 
wan  ould  hat-box  and  the  half  of  a  carpet-bag.  Wirra,  wirra! 
but  it's  some  folks  have  luck,  says  I,  as  the  train  took  me 
out  av'  Waterloo  in  a  third-class  smoker,  while  you  were  left 
on  the  platform  sheddin'  half-crowns  out  av  every  pore  for  the 
newspaper  boys  an'  porters  to  pick  up,  and  smilin'  like  a  baby 
dhramin'  av  the  bottle.  You'd  passed  your  exams  in  Anatomy 
wid  wan  hand  held  behind  you  an'  a  glove  on  the  other,  you'd 
got  your  London  University  Studentship  in  Physiology,  and 
you'd  fallen  head  over  ears  in  love  with  the  prettiest  and  sweet- 
est girl  that  ever  wore  out  shoe-leather.  You  wrote  to  me 
two  years  later  to  say  you'd  been  appointed  an  in-surgeon  on 
the  Junior  Staff,  an'  that  you  were  engaged  to  be  married. 
But  divil  the  taste  of  weddin'-cake  did  I  ever  get  off  you. 

What "  The  little  Irishman,  thoughtlessly  rattling  on, 

pulled  up  in  an  instant,  seeing  the  ghastly  unmistakable  change 
upon  the  other's  face.  He  remembered.  He  knew,  more  per- 
fectly than  his  less  well-informed  senior,  the  grim  black  reason 
for  the  change  in  Saxham,  and  for  once,  his  habitual  tact  de- 
serted him.  His  rosy  gills  purpled,  even  as  had  the  Mayor's 
on  the  Dop  Doctor's  entrance.  His  eyes  winced  under  the 
heavy,  petrifying,  unseeing  stare  of  Saxham's  blue  ones. 

"  Sorry  to  stem  the  flood  of  your  reminiscences,  McFadyenf 
but  we're  going  to  overhaul  the  Hospital  now." 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  181 

It  was  the  voice  of  the  visitor  who  had  come  to  the  Harris 
Street  house  on  the  previous  night,  the  tall,  loosely-built, 
closely-knit  figure  in  the  easily  fitting  Service-dress  that  now 
stepped  across  the  gulf  that  had  suddenly  opened  between  the 
two  old  friends,  and  laid  a  hand  in  pleasant,  familiar  fashion 
upon  Saxham's  heavy,  rather  bowed  shoulders.  But  for  that 
scholar's  stoop  they  would  have  been  of  equal  height.  He 
went  on :  "  You  will  be  able  to  give  us  points,  Saxham,  where 
they  will  be  needed  most.  Can't  expect  Colonial  institutions, 
even  at  the  best,  to  keep  abreast  of  London." 

The  blue  eyes  met  his  almost  defiantly. 

"  As  I  think  I  remember  telling  you,  sir,  it  is  five  years  since 
I  saw  London." 

"  Well,  I  don't  blame  you  for  taking  a  long  holiday  while 
it  was  procurable.  There  are  a  fe\v  of  us  who  would  benefit 
by  a  gallop  without  the  halter,  eh,  Taggart?  " 

He  would  not  stoop  even  to  benefit  indirectly  by  the 
shrewd,  kindly  act.  He  drew  himself  to  his  full  height,  and 
the  words  were  spoken  with  such  ringing  clearness  that  they 
arrested  the  attention  of  every  man  present. 

"  My  holiday  was  compulsory.  I  underwent — innocently — 
a  legal  prosecution  for  malpractice.  The  Crown  Jury  decided 
in  my  favour,  but  my  West  End  connection  was  ruined.  I 
resigned  my  Hospital  and  other  appointments,  and  left  Eng- 
land." 

"Ay!"  It  was  the  Chief  Medical  Officer's  broad  Aber- 
deenian  tongue  that  droned  out  the  bagpipe  note.  "  Weel, 
Doctor,  it's  an  ill  wind  blaws  naebody  guid,  and  ye  canna  ex- 
pect Captain  McFadyen  or  mysel'  to  sympatheese  overmuch 
wi'  the  West  End  for  a  loss  that  is  our  gain.  And,  Colonel, 
it's  in  my  memory  that  ye  had  set  your  mind  on  beginnin'  wi' 
the  Operating  Theatre?  .  .  ." 


XXV 

THE  chart-nurse  looked  in  to  say  that  the  Medical  officers 
of  the  Garrison  Staff  were  making  the  rounds,  and  was  stricken 
to  the  soul  by  the  discovery  that  the  Reverend  Julius  Fraithorn 
had  had  no  breakfast.  Occupying  a  small,  single-cotted, 
electric  bell-less  room  in  the  outlying  ward — brick-lined  and 
corrugated-iron-built  like  the  greater  building,  and  reserved 
for  infectious  cases — the  Reverend  Julius  might  have  been  said 


182  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

to  be  marooned,  had  not.  his  dark-eyed,  transparent,  wasted 
young  face  created  such  hot  competition  among  the  nurses  for 
the  privilege  of  attending  on  him,  that  he  had  frequently  re- 
ceived breakfast  and  dinner  in  duplicate,  and  once  three  teas. 
Some  of  the  probationers,  reared  in  the  outer  darkness  of  Dis- 
sent, knew  no  better  than  to  term  him  "  the  minister."  To 
the  matron,  who  was  High  Church,  he  existed  as  "  Father 
Fraithorn."  Julius  is  hardly  complete  to  the  reader  without 
an  intimation  that  he  very  dearly  loved  to  be  dubbed  "  Father." 
The  matron  had  never  failed  in  this. 

A  letter  from  Father  Tatham,  Julius's  senior  at  St.  Mar- 
garet's, lay  under  the  bony  hand — a  mere  bunch  of  fleshless 
fingers,  in  which  the  skin-covered  stick  that  had  been  a  man's 
arm  ended.  Father  Tatham  wrote  to  say  that,  after  a  bright, 
enjoyable  summer  holiday,  spent  with  a  chosen  band  of  West- 
Central  London  coster-boys  at  a  Rest  Home  at  Cookham-on- 
Thames,  he  has  started  his  Friday  evening  confirmation  classes 
for  young  costermongers  in  Little  Schoolhouse  Court,  and  ob- 
tained a  record  attendance  by  the  simple  plan  of  rewarding 
punctual  attendance  and  ultimate  mastery  gained  over  the 
Catechism  and  Athanasian  Creed  with  pairs  of  trousers. 
Julius  had  shaken  his  head  over  the  trousers,  knowing  that  the 
first  walk  taken  by  the  garments  in  company  with  the  winners 
would  be  as  far  as  the  pop-shop.  But  lying  there  in  the  clean- 
smelling,  airy  Hospital  ward,  he  yearned  with  a  mighty  yearn- 
ing for  the  stuffy  West-Central  classroom,  and  the  rowdy  crew 
of  London  roughs  hulking  and  hustling  on  the  benches,  learn- 
ing per  medium  of  "  the  dodger,"  that  one's  duty  to  one's 
neighbour  was  not  to  abuse  him  foully  without  cause,  to  re- 
frain one's  hands  from  pocket-picking,  shop-snapping,  hustling, 
and  jellying  heads  with  brass-buckled  belts  or  iron  knuckle- 
dusters, and  not  to  get  drunk  before  Saturday  night. 

He  had  come  out  to  South  Africa  upon  the  advice  of 
physicians — honestly-meaning  wiseacres,  ignorant  of  the.  shifts, 
the  fatigues,  the  inevitable  exertions  and  privations  that  the 
panting,  tottering  invalid  must  inevitably  undergo,  in  company 
with  the  hale  traveller  and  the  sound  emigrant;  the  rough, 
protracted  journeys,  the  neglect  and  discomfort  of  the  inns  and 
taverns  and  boarding-houses,  where  Kaffirs  are  the  servants,  and 
dirt  and  discomfort  reign.  He  bore  them  because  he  must,  and 
struggled  on,  learning  by  painful  experience  that  fever-patches 
are  best  avoided,  and  finding  out  what  dust-winds  mean  to  a 
man  who  has  got  sick  lungs,  and  sometimes  thinking  he  was 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  183 

getting  better,  and  would  be  one  day  able  to  go  back  to  the 
Clergy  House,  and  take  up  his  curacy  in  the  West  and  West- 
Central  districts,  and  begin  work  again. 

Now,  lying  panting  on  his  pillows,  raised  high  by  the  light 
chair  slipped  in  behind  them,  hospital-fashion,  he  looked  be- 
yond the  whitewashed  walls  northwards,  to  grimy  London. 
He  dreamed,  while  the  chart-nurse  was  still  apologizing  about 
the  forgotten  breakfast,  of  the  High  Ritual  in  the  sacred  place, 
and  the  solemn  joy  of  the  vested  celebrant  of  the  Eucharistic 
Sacrifice.  The  incense  rose  in  clouds  to  the  gilded,  diapered 
roof,  the  organ  pealed  .  .  .  then  the  ward  seemed  to  fill  with 
men  in  khaki  Service  dress,  keen-eyed  and  tan-faced  beings,  of 
quiet  movements  and  well-bred  gestures,  obviously  stamped 
with  the  cachet  of  authority.  Upright,  alert,  well-knit,  and 
strong,  the  visitors  exhaled  the  compound  fragrance  of  healthy 
virility,  clean  linen,  and  excellent  cigars;  and  the  poor  sufferer 
yielded  to  a  pang  of  envy  as  he  looked  at  them,  standing  about 
his  bed,  and  thought  of  that  resting-place  even  narrower,  in 
which  his  wasted  body  must  soon  lie.  And  then  he  mentally 
smote  his  breast  and  repented.  What  was  he,  the  unworthy 
servant  of  Heaven,  that  he  should  dare  to  oppose  the  Holy 
Will? 

"  Well,  now,  and  how  are  we  the  day  ? "  said  the  Chief 
Medical  Officer,  presented  by  the  Resident  Surgeon  to  the 
occupant  of  the  bed.  He  read  approaching  death  in  the 
sunken  face  against  the  pillows,  and  in  the  feeble  pulse  as  he 
touched  the  skeleton  wrist,  and  the  Resident  Surgeon,  catch- 
ing the  Scotsman's  eye,  shook  his  head  slightly,  imparting  in- 
formation that  was  not  needed. 

"  It  is  not  in  my  power,  I  am  afraid,  sir,  to  return  you  the 
conventional  answer,"  said  Julius  Fraithorn.  "  To  be  plain 
and  brief,  I  am  suffering  from  tuberculous  lung-disease,  and 
I  am  advised  that  I  have  not  many  days  to  live." 

He  smiled  gratefully  at  the  Resident  Surgeon. 

"  Everything  that  can  be  done  for  me  here  is  done.  I  can- 
not be  too  thankful.  But  I  should  have  liked — I  should  have 
wished  to  have  been  spared  to  return  to  England,  if  not  to 
live  a  little  longer  among  my  friends,  at  least  to  .  .  ."  He 
broke  off  panting,  and  his  rattling  breaths  seemed  to  shake 
him.  He  sounded  like  Indian  corn  shaken  in  a  gunny-bag; 
he  wheezed  like  the  mildewed  harmonium  in  the  Hospital 
chapel,  on  which  he  had  once  tried  to  play.  When  he  had 
spoken,  his  voice  had  had  the  flat,  deadly  softness  of  the  ex- 


184  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

hausted  phthisical  sufferer's.  When  he  had  moved  he  had 
suffered  torture:  the  shoulder-blades  and  hip-bones  had  pierced 
the  wasted  muscular  tissues  and  projected  through  the  skin. 

"  I  can't !  "  he  gasped  out.     "  You  see " 

A  dizziness  of  deadly  weakness  seized  him.  His  soft 
muffled  voice  trailed  away  into  a  whisper,  blue  shadows 
gathered  about  his  large,  mobile,  sensitive  mouth,  much  like 
that  of  Keats  as  shown  in  the  Death  Cast,  and  his  head  fell 
back  upon  the  pillows.  Julius  had  fainted. 

"Poor  beggar!"  said  a  large,  pink  man,  wearing  the  red 
shoulder-straps  and  brown-leather  leggings  of  the  Staff,  to 
another,  a  fair,  handsome,  young  giant  who  leaned  against  the 
opposite  door-post,  as  the  chart-nurse  hurried  to  take  away 
the  pillows,  and  lay  the  patient  flat,  and  the  shorter  of  the 
two  medical  officers  dropped  brandy  from  a  flask  into  a  glass 
with  water  in  it,  while  the  tall  Scot,  his  finger  on  the  pulse, 
stooped  over  the  pale  figure  on  the  bed. 

"  No  doubt  about  his  next  address  being  the  Cemetery. 
Should  grouse  myself  if  I  was  in  his  shoes — or  bed-socks  would 
be  the  proper  word — what  ?  " 

Beauvayse  agreed.  "  He  looks  like  a  chap  I  saw  once  get 
into  a  coffin  at  the  Cabaret  de  1'Enfer — that  shady  restaurant 
place  in  the  Boulevard  de  Clichy.  When  they  turned  on  the 
light  .  .  ."  He  shrugged.  "  The  women  of  the  party 
thought  it  simply  ripping.  I  wanted  to  be  sick." 

Captain  Bingo  had  also  known  the  sensation  of  nausea  dur- 
ing a  similar  experience.  "  But  women'll  stand  anything,"  he 
said,  "  particularly  if  they've  been  told  it's  chic.  My  own 
part,  I  can  stand  any  amount  of  dead  men — healthy  dead  men, 
don't  you  know?  But — give  you  my  word — a  cadaverous 
spectacle  like  that  poor  chap,  bones  stickin'  out  of  his  hide, 
and  breathin'  as  if  he  was  stuffed  with  dry  shavin's,  or  husks 
like  the  Prodigal  Son,  gives  me  the  downright  horrors !  " 

Thus  they  conferred,  supporting  opposite  door-posts  with 
solid  shoulders,  until  the  C.M.O.,  turning  his  head  addressed 
them  brusquely,  curtly: 

"  Wrynche,  if  you'd  transfer  yourself  with  Lord  Beauvayse 
to  the  passage,  myself  and  my  colleagues  here  would  be  the 
better  obliged  to  ye." 

"Pleasure!"  They  removied,  with  a  simultaneous  clink 
of  scabbards  and  a  ring  of  spurred  heels  on  the  tiled  pavement. 

The  Colonel  remained,  making  those  about  the  bed  a  group 
of  five.  The  chart-nurse  stayed,  pending  the  nod  of  dismissal, 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  185 

a  rigid  statue  of  capped  and  aproned  discipline,  upright  in  the 
corner. 

"Phew!"  Captain  Bingo  blew  a  vast  sigh  of  relief,  and 
produced  a  cigar-case.  "  Well  out  of  that,  my  boy.  All 
jumps  this  morning;  wouldn't  take  the  odds  you're  not  as 
bad." 

"  Rather."  Beauvayse  nodded,  and  drew  the  elder  man's 
attention,  with  a  look,  to  the  strong  young  hand  that  held 
a  choice  Havana  just  accepted  from  the  offered  case.  "  Shaky, 
isn't  it?  and  yet  I  didn't  punish  the  champagne  much  last 
night.  It's  sheer  excitement,  just  what  one  feels  before  riding 
a  steeplechase,  or  going  into  Action  early  on  a  raw  morning. 
Not  that  I've  been  in  anything  but  a  couple  of  Punitive  Ex- 
peditions— from  Peshawar,  under  Wilks-Dayrell,  splitting  up 
some  North-West  Frontier  tribes  that  had  lumped  themselves 
together  against  British  Authority — up  to  now.  But  I'm 
looking  out  for  the  chance  of  something  better  worth  having, 
like  you  and  all  the  rest  of  us.  Trouble  you  for  a  light  ?  " 

"  By  the  Living  Tinker,  and  that's  the  fourth !  Where 
d'you  think  I'd  give  a  cool  fifty  to  be  this  minute?  Not 
cooling  my  heels  in  a  brick-paved  passage  while  a  pack  of 
doctors  are  swoppin'  dog-Latin  over  the  body  of  a  moribund 
young  parson,  but  on  the  roof  of  the  Staff  Quarters,  lookin' 
North,  with  my  eyes  glued  to  the  binoculars  and  my  ears 
pricked  for — you  know  what !  " 

Beauvayse  groaned.  "Isn't  that  what  I'm  suffering  for? 
And  the  Chief  must  be  ten  times  worse.  How  he  keeps  his 
countenance — demure  as  my  grandmother's  cat  lappin'  cream. 
...  I  say,  the  Transvaal  Dutch ;  they  call  themselves  the 
true  Children  of  Israel,  don't  they?  Well,  which  did  Moses 
and  his  little  gang  come  across  first  in  the  Desert,  the  Pillar  of 
Cloud,  or  the  Pillar  of  Fire,  or  a  couple  of  railway-trucks  con- 
tainin'  the  raw  material  for  a  sky-journey,  only  waitin'  till 
Brer'  Boer  plugs  a  bullet  in  among  the  dynamite?  It  makes 
me  feel  good  all  over,  as  the  American  women  say,  when  I 
think  of  it."  He  smiled  like  a  mischievous  young  archangel, 
masquerading  in  Service  kit. 

Within  the  room  the  fainting  man  was  coming  back  to  con- 
sciousness, his  dry,  rattling  breaths  bearing  out  Captain  Bingo 
Wrynche's  similitude  of  a  sack  of  shavings,  rings  of  blue  fire 
swimming  before  his  darkened  vision,  and  a  dull  roaring  in 
his  ears.  .  .  .  The  Royal  Army  Medical  Corps  wrought 
over  him;  the  nurse  lent  a  deft  helping  hand;  the  Resident 


1 86  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

Surgeon  talked  eagerly  to  the  Colonel;  and  he,  lending  ear, 
scarcely  heard  the  reiterated,  stereotyped  parrot-phrases,  so 
taken  up  was  his  attention  with  the  man  in  shabby  white  drill 
clothes,  who  leaned  over  the  foot  of  the  bed,  his  square  face 
set  into  an  expressionless  mask,  his  gentian-blue,  oddly  vivid 
eyes  fixed  upon  the  wasted,  waxy-yellow  face  of  the  sick  man, 
his  head  bent,  as  he  listened  with  profound,  absorbed  attention 
to  the  husky,  rattling,  laboured  breaths. 

Suddenly  he  straightened  himself  and  spoke,  addressing  him- 
self to  the  Resident  Surgeon. 

"  The  patient  has  told  us,  sir,  that  he  is  suffering  from 
tuberculous  disease  of  the  lungs.  May  I  ask,  was  that  the 
conclusion  arrived  at  by  a  London  consulting  physician,  and 
whether  your  own  diagnosis  has  confirmed  the  assertion  ?  " 

The  Resident  Surgeon  nodded  with  patronizing  indiffer- 
ence. He  was  not  going  to  waste  civilities  upon  this  rowdy, 
drunken  remittance-man,  whom  he  had  seen  reeling  through 
the  streets  of  the  stad  as  he  went  upon  his  own  respectable 
way. 

"Phthisis  pulmonalis"  He  addressed  his  reply  to  the 
Chief.  "  And  the  process  of  lung-destruction  is,  as  you  will 
observe,  sir,  nearly  complete. 

He  encountered  from  the  Chief  a  look  of  cool  displeasure 
that  flushed  him  to  the  top  of  his  knobby  forehead,  and  set  him 
blinking  nervously  behind  his  big  round  spectacles. 

"  Dr.  Saxham  asked  you,  sir,  unless  I  mistake,  whether  you 
had  ascertained  by  your  own  diagnosis,  the  .  .  ."  Lady 
Hannah's  words  came  back  to  him.  He  recalled  the  "  bit 
of  information  wormed  out  of  the  nurse,"  and  ended  with 
"  the  presence  of  the  bacillus?" 

Saxham's  blue  eyes  thrust  their  rapier-points  at  him,  and 
then  plunged  into  the  oyster-like  orbs  behind  the  spectacles  of 
the  Resident  Surgeon,  who  rapidly  grew  from  scarlet  to  purple, 
and  from  purple  to  pale  green.  Major  Taggart  and  the  Irish- 
man exchanged  a  look  of  intelligence. 

"  Koch's  bacillus,  sir,  were  this  a  case  of  tuberculosis  proper, 
would  be  present  in  the  expectoration  of  the  patient,  and  easy 
of  demonstration  under  the  microscope."  Saxham's  voice 
was  cold  as  ice  and  cutting  as  tempered  steel.  "  May  we  take 
it  that  you  can  personally  testify  to  its  presence  here  ?  "  He 
pointed  to  the  bed. 

"And  varra  possibly,"  put  in  Taggart,  "ye  could  submit 
a  culture  for  present  inspection?  It  would  be  gratifeeying 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  187 

to  me  and  Captain  McFadyen  here,  as  weel  as  to  our  friend 
an'  colleague  Dr.  Saxham,  late  of  St.  Stephen's-in-the-West, 
London,  to  varrafy  the  correctness  o'  your  diagnosis." 

"  And  it  would  that !  "  the  Irishman  chimed  in.  "  So  trot 
out  your  bacillus,  by  all  manner  of  means !  " 

The  Resident  Surgeon  babbled  something  incoherent,  and 
melted  out  of  the  room. 

"  Moppin'  his  head  as  he  goes  down  the  passage,"  said  Mc- 
Fadyen, coming  back  from  the  door. 

"  He'll  no  be  in  sic  a  sweatin'  hurry  to  come  back,"  pro- 
nounced the  canny  Scot,  shedding  a  wink  from  a  dry,  red- 
fringed  eyelid.  He  produced  from  the  roomy  breast-pocket 
of  his  khaki  Service  jacket  a  rubber-tubed  stethoscope,  and  put 
it  silently  into  the  hand  Saxham  had  mechanically  stretched 
out  for  it.  Then  he  drew  back,  his  eyes,  like  those  of  the 
other  two  spectators  of  the  strange  scene  that  was  beginning, 
fixed  upon  the  chief  actor  in  it.  The  other,  weak  after  his 
swoon  as  a  new-born  child,  lay  passively,  helplessly  upon  the 
bed. 

Saxham,  his  square  face  stony  and  set,  moved  with  a  noise- 
less, feline,  padding  step  towards  the  prone  victim.  A  gleam 
of  apprehension  shot  into  Julius  Fraithorn's  great  dark  eyes, 
reopening  now  to  consciousness.  They  fixed  themselves,  with 
an  instinct  born  of  that  sudden  thrill  of  fear,  upon  the  lightly- 
closed  right  hand.  Instantly  comprehending,  Saxham  lifted 
the  hand,  showed  that  it  held  no  instrument  save  the  stetho- 
scope, and  dropped  it  again  by  his  side,  drawing  nearer.  Then 
;the  massive,  close-cropped  black  head  sank  to  the  level  of 
Julius  Fraithorn's  breast,  revealed  in  its  ghastly,  emaciated 
nakedness  by  the  open  nightshirt.  The  massive  shoulders 
bowed,  the  supple  body  curved,  the  keen  ear  joined  itself  to 
the  heaving  surface.  In  a  moment  more  the  agonizing,  hack- 
sing,  rending  cough  came  on.  Julius  battled  for  air.  Raising 
him  deftly  and  tenderly,  Saxham  signed  to  the  nurse,  who 
hurried  to  him,  answering  his  low  questions  in  whispers,  giv- 
ing aid  where  he  indicated  it  required. 

Steadily,  patiently,  the  binaural  stethoscope  travelled  over 
the  lung  area,  gathering  abnormal  sounds,  searching  for  silent 
spaces,  sucking  evidence  into  the  assimilative  brain  behind  the 
eyes  that  saw  nothing  but  the  man  upon  the  bed,  the  locked 
human  casket  housing  the  Secret  that  was  slowly,  surely  com- 
ing to  light.  In  the  fierce  determination  to  gain  it,  he  threw 
the  stethoscope  away,  and  glued  his  avid  ear  to  the  man  again. 


1 88  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"  Toch !  but  I  wouldna'  have  missed  this  for  a  kittle  o' 
Kruger  sovereigns !  "  the  Chief  Medical  Officer  whispered  to 
his  colleague  from  Meath.  And  McFadyen  whispered  back: 

"  Nor  me,  for  your  shoes.     'Ssh !  " 

He  was  lifting  up  the  great  stooping  shoulders,  and  begin- 
ning to  speak  in  a  voice  totally  different  from  that  of  the  man 
known  in  Gueldersdorp  as  the  Dop  Doctor.  Clear,  ringing, 
concise,  the  sentences  left  his  lips: 

"  Gentlemen,  I  invite  your  attention  to  a  case  of  involun- 
tary simulation  of  the  symptoms  distinguishing  pulmonary 
tuberculosis  by  a  patient  suffering  from  a  grave  disease  of  a 
totally  different  and  much  less  malignant  character.  Oblige 
me  by  stepping  nearer." 

They  crowded  about  the  bed  like  eager  students. 

"  In  order  to  show  what  false  conclusions  loose  modes  of 
reasoning  and  the  habitual  reliance  upon  precedent  may  lead 
to,  take  the  instance  of  the  consulting  physician  to  whom  some 
years  ago  this  young  man,  now  barely  thirty,  and  reduced,  as 
you  may  see  for  yourselves,  to  the  final  extremity  of  physical 
decline,  resorted." 

"  I  would  gie  five  shillin'  if  the  man  could  hear  his  ain 
judgment!"  murmured  the  Chief  Medical  Officer;  for  he  had 
gleaned  from  a  whispered  answer  of  Julius's  the  omnipotent 
name  of  Sir  Jedbury  Fargoe.  "Toch!"  He  chuckled  dryly. 
Saxham  went  on : 

"  The  consulting  patient  suffers  from  cough,  painful  and 
racking,  from  impaired  digestive  power,  from  increasing  de- 
bility, fever,  and  night-sweats.  He  visits  the  specialist,  con- 
vinced that  he  was  consumptive,  he  receives  confirmation  of  his 
convictions,  and  you  see  him  to-day  presenting  the  appearance, 
and  reproducing  all  the  symptoms  of  a  patient  in  consump- 
tion's final  stage.  Possibly  the  germs  of  tuberculosis  may  be 
dormant  in  his  organization,  waiting  the  opportunity  to  de- 
velop into  activity!  Possibly — a  very  remote  possibility — the 
disease  may  have  already  attacked  some  organ  of  his  body! 
But — and  upon  this  point  I  can  take  my  stand  with  the  con- 
fidence of  absolute  certainty — the  lungs  of  this  so-called  pul- 
monary sufferer  are  absolutely  sound !  " 

"My  certie!  Send  I  may  live  to  foregather  wi'  Sir  Jed- 
bury  Fargoe!"  the  Chief  Medical  Officer  prayed  inaudibly. 
"  He  will  gang  to  the  next  International  Consumption  Con- 
gress wi'  a  smaller  conceit  of  himsel',  or  my  name's  no 
Duncan  Taggart !  'V 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  189 

The  lecturer,  absorbed  in  his  subject,  lifted  his  hand  to 
silence,  the  murmur,  and  pursued : 

"From  what  disease,  then,  is  this  man  suffering?  Logical 
and  progressive  conclusions  drawn  from  experience  and  based 
upon  the  local  enlargement  which  the  physicians  previously 
consulted  have  apparently  failed  to  perceive,  lead  me  to 
diagnose  the  presence  of  a  tumour  in  the  mediastinum,  extend- 
ing its  claws  into  the  lungs,  and  seriously  impeding  their  ac- 
tion and  the  action  of  the  heart.  An  operation,  serious  and 
necessarily  involving  danger,  is  imperative.  The  growth  may 
be  benign  or  malignant;  in  the  latter  case  I  doubt  whether 
the  life  of  the  patient  is  to  be  saved.  But  in  the  former 
case  he  has  good  hopes.  Understand,  I  speak  with  certainty. 
Upon  the  presence  of  the  growth,  simple  or  otherwise,  I  am 
ready  to  stake  my  credit,  my  good  name,  my  professional  repu- 
tation  " 

Ah!  It  rushed  upon  him  with  a  sickening  shock  of  recollec- 
tion that  he  was  bankrupt  in  these  things,  and  shame  and  anger 
strove  for  the  mastery  in  his  face,  and  anguish  wrung  a  sob 
from  him,  despite  his  iron  composure. 

He  wrenched  at  the  collar  about  his  swelling  throat,  as  he 
turned  away  blindly  towards  the  window,  seeing  nothing, 
fighting  desperately  with  the  horrible  despair  that  had  gripped 
him,  and  the  mad,  wild  frenzy  of  yearning  for  the  old,  glor- 
ious life  of  strenuous  effort  and  conscious  power.  Lost!  lost! 
all  that  had  been  won. 

"  I  ...  I  had  forgotten  .  .  . !  "  he  muttered ;  and  then  a 
hard,  vigorous  hand  found  his  and  gripped  it. 

"  Go  on  forgetting,  Saxham !  "  said  a  voice  in  his  ear — a 
voice  he  knew,  instantly  steadying — such  virtue  is  there  in 
honest,  heartfelt,  comprehending  sympathy  between  man  and 
his  fellow-man — the  spinning  brain,  and  quieting  the  leap- 
ing pulses,  and  giving  him  back,  as  nothing  else  could  have 
done,  his  lost  self-control.  "  You  surely  have  earned  the 
right!" 

"Man,  you're  a  wonder!"  groaned  the  enraptured  Chief 
Medical  Officer.  He  added,  with  a  relapse  into  the  national 
caution :  "  That  is,  ye  will  be  if  your  prognosis  proves 
correc'.  But  the  Taggarts  are  a'  of  the  canny  breed  of 
Doobtin'  Tammas,  an  sae  I'll  juist  keep  a  calm  sugh  till  I 
see  what  the  knife  lays  bare." 

"  Use  the  knife  now,  sir.     At  once — without  delay!" 

It  was  the  weak,  muffled  voice  of  the  patient  on  the  bed. 


190  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

Saxham  wheeled  sharply  about,  and  the  stern  blue  eyes  and  the 
great  lustrous  pleading  brown  ones,  looked  into  each  other. 

The  pale  Julius  spoke  again: 

"I  entreat  you,  Doctor!" 

Saxham  spoke  in  his  curt  way: 

"You  are  aware  that  there  is  risk?" 

Julius  Fraithorn  stretched  out  his  transparent  hands. 

"  What  risk  can  there  be  to  a  man  in  my  state  ?  Look  at 
these;  and  did  I  not  hear  you  say  .  .  ." 

"Whatever  I  may  have  said,  sir,  and  however  urgent  I  may 
admit  the  necessity  for  immediate  operation,  you  must  wait 
until  to-morrow  morning." 

"  I  am  fasting,  sir,  and  fed.  I  received  Holy  Communion 
this  morning,  and  have  not  yet  breakfasted." 

The  return  of  the  chart-nurse  followed  by  a  probationer 
carrying  a  laden  tray  provoked  an  exclamation  from  the  little 
Irishman. 

"  Signs  on  it,  the  boy's  as  empty  as  a  drum.  The  devil  a 
wonder  he  went  off  like  he  did  a  bit  back.  And  you  can't 
deny  him,  Saxham  ?  " 

"  I  wad  gie  him  the  chance,  Saxham  " — this  from  Surgeon- 
Major  Taggart — "  in  your  place ;  and  maybe  I'm  putting  in 
six  worrds  fer  mysel'  as  well  as  half  a  dozen  for  the  patient. 
For  I  have  an  auld  bone  to  pyke  wi'  Sir  Jedbury  Fargoe,  aboot 
a  Regimental  patient  he  slew  for  me,  three  years  agone,  wi' 
his  jawbone  of  a  Philistine  ass." 

Saxham  spoke  to  Fraithorn  authoritatively,  kindly. 

"  You  have  no  near  relative  to  sign  the  Hospital  Register?" 

"  My  family  are  all  in  England,  sir.  I  have  not  thought 
it  necessary  to  distress  them  with  the  knowledge  of  my  state." 

"  I  think  Lady  Hannah  Wrynche,  who  is  now  in  Guelders- 
dorp,  happens  to  be  an  acquaintance  of  theirs,  if  not  a  friend." 

Julius  turned  eagerly  to  the  Colonel. 

"  It  is  true,  she  did  come  here  yesterday.  But  I  should 
hardly  wish  .  .  .  Surely,  being  of  mature  age  and  in  the  full 
possession  of  all  my  faculties  " — there  was  a  smile  on  the  pale 
lips — •"  I  may  be  allowed  to  sign  the  book  myself?  " 

The  doctors  interchanged  a  look.  The  Colonel  said  to  the 
patient: 

"  Mr.  Fraithorn,  if  the  idea  is  not  unwelcome  to  you,  I 
myself  will  sign  the  book,  and  " — he  stooped  over  the  bed  and 
laid  his  hard,  soldierly  hand  kindly  on  the  pale  one — "  in  the 
event  of  a  less  fortunate  termination  than  that  we  hope  for  " — 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  191 

the  faces  of  the  three  surgeons  were  a  study  in  inscrutability — 
"  I  will  communicate,  as  soon  as  any  communication  is  ren- 
dered possible,  with  the  Bishop  and  Mrs.  Fraithorn." 

The  cough  shook  Julius  as  a  terrier  shakes  a  rat  before  he 
could  gasp  out: 

"  Thank  you,  sir.     With  all  my  heart  I  thank  you." 

"  You  shall  thank  me  when  you  get  well !  "  l  he  Chief 
shook  the  pale  hand,  crossed  the  bare  boards  to  Saxham,  who 
stood  staring  at  them  sullenly,  and  took  him  by  the  arm. 
They  went  out  of  the  ward  together,  talking  in  low  tones. 
The  medical  officers  followed.  Then  the  chart-nurse  and  the 
probationer,  who  had  been  banished  with  the  tray,  came  bus- 
tling back  with  towels,  and  razors,  and  a  soapy  solution  in  a 
basin,  having  a  carbolic  smell. 

Dr.  Saxham  had  gone  to  take  a  disinfecting  bath,  she  said, 
as  she  went  about  her  minute  preparations;  and  the  Com- 
manding Officer  had  gone  with  the  Staff,  and  now  her  poor 
dear  must  let  himself  be  got  ready. 

They  wrapped  the  gaunt  skeleton  in  a  white  blanket-robe 
with  a  heavy  monkish  cowl  to  it,  and  drew  thick  padded 
blanket-stockings  over  the  ligament-tied,  skin-covered  bones 
that  served  the  wasted  wretch  for  legs,  and  wheeled  in  a  high, 
narrow,  rubber-wheeled,  leather-cushioned  stretcher,  and  laid 
him  on  it,  light  to  lift,  a  very  handful  of  humanity,  and 
wheeled  him,  hooded  and  head-first,  through  the  tile-floored 
passage  and  out  into  the  golden  African  sunshine,  that  baked 
him  gloriously  through  the  coverings,  and  so  into  the  main 
building  and  down  tile-floored  passages  there. 

He  prayed  silently  as  he  was  wheeled,  with  blinded,  cowled 
eyes,  through  double  doors  at  the  end.  .  .  . 


XXVI 

THE  operation  was  over,  and  the  two  Celts,  self-appointed  to 
the  temporary  posts  of  assistant-surgeon  and  anaesthetist  ex- 
pressed their  emotions  in  characteristic  manner.  .  .  . 

"  Twelve  minutes  to  a  second  between  the  first  incision  an' 
the  last  stitch.  .  .  -  Och,  Owen,  the  jewel  you  are!  Give 
me  the  loan  of  your  fist,  man,  this  minute." 

"  What  price  Sir  Jedbury  Fargoe  the  noo  ?  The  auld- 
farrant  scraichin',  obstinate  grey  gander.  A  hand  I  will  tak' 
at  his  over  the  head  o'  this,  or  I'm  no  Taggart  of  Taggart- 


192  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

showe.  Speaking  wi'  seriousness,  Saxham,  it  was  a  pretty 
operation,  an'  performed  wi'  extraordinary  quickness.  And 
Tm  sorry  there  are  no'  a  baker's  dozen  o'  patients  for  ye  to 
deal  wi'.  It's  a  gran'  treat  to  see  a  borrn  genius  use  the 
kneefe." 

"  You  could  have  done  it  yourself,  Major,  in  less  time." 

"  Maybe  I  could,  and  maybe  I  couldna' !  I  doubt  but  we 
Army  billies  are  better  at  puttin'  men  thegeither  than  at  takin' 
them  to  pieces  in  the  long  run.  .  .  .  Gently  now,  porter,  wi' 
liftin'  the  patient.  .  .  .  Ay,  McFadyen,  that's  richt,  gie  the 
man  a  hand.  See  to  him,  Saxham,  is  he  no'  fine  to  luik  at? 
A  wheen  blue  an'  puffy,  but  the  pulse  is  better  than  I  would 
have  expeckit.  Wheel  him  awa',  nurse;  he'll  no  come  round 
for  another  hour.  .  .  ." 

They  wheeled  him  away,  back  to  the  distant  ward.  The 
porter  followed.  The  three  surgeons  standing  by  that  grim 
table  in  the  rubber-floored  central  space  of  the  amphitheatre, 
fenced  in  by  students'  benches,  vacant  save  for  half  a  dozen 
whispering  dressers,  looked  at  one  another.  Bloused  and 
aproned  with  sterilized  material,  masked,  rubber-gloved,  and 
slippered,  and  splashed  with  the  same  ominous  stains  that  were 
on  the  table  and  upon  the  floor,  Saxham's  heavy-shouldered 
figure  was  as  ominous  and  sinister  as  ever  played  a  part  in 
medieval  torture-chamber,  or  figured  in  a  nightmare  tale  of 
Foe's  device.  You  can  see  the  other  surgeons,  bibbed  and 
sleeved,  the  Irishman,  small  and  dark  and  wiry,  sousing  a 
lethal  array  of  sharp  and  gleaming  implements  in  a  glass  bath 
of  carbolic;  Taggart,  standing  at  a  glass  table,  rubber-wheeled 
and  movable,  like  everything  else,  for  use,  and  laden  with  rolls 
of  lint  and  bandaging,  and  blue-glass  bottles  of  peroxide  of 
hydrogen  and  mercurial  bichlorate,  daintily  returning  reels 
of  silkworm  gut  and  bobbins  of  silver  wire  to  their  velvet- 
lined  case. 

"  You're  no'  fatigued  ?     You  would  no'  like  a  steemulant  ?  " 

Saxham  started  and  withdrew  his  gaze.  He  had  been  star- 
ing with  dull  intensity  of  desire  at  the  brandy  decanter,  for- 
gotten by  the  matron,  whose  usual  charge  it  was.  And  the 
sharp  blue-grey  eye  of  Surgeon-Major  Taggart  followed  the 
glance  to  its  end  in  the  golden-gleaming  crystal. 

"Fatigued?     I  hardly  think  so!" 

He  laughed,  and  the  others  joined  in  the  laugh,  remember- 
ing the  lengthy  line  of  patients  operated  on  in  a  single  mid- 
week morning  at  St.  Stephen's.  And  yet  his  steady  hand 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  193 

shook  a  little,  and  a  curious  soft,  subtle  dulness  of  sensation 
was  stealing  over  him.  He  had  gone  to  bed  sober,  had  risen 
after  three  hours  of  blessed,  unexpected,  helpful  sleep,  to  battle 
with  his  desperate  craving  until  morning.  When  the  old 
woman  left  in  charge  of  the  housekeeping  arrangements  had 
come  to  his  door  with  hot  water  and  his  usual  breakfast — a 
mug  of  strong  coffee  with  milk  and  a  roll — he  had  gulped  down 
the  reviving,  steadying  draught  thirstily,  and  swallowed  a 
mouthful  or  two  of  the  bread ;  and  when  he  was  shaved  and 
tubbed  and  clothed  in  the  shabby  white  drill  suit,  had  gone 
down  to  the  dispensary  and  mixed  himself  a  dose  of  chloric 
ether  and  strychnine,  stjong  enough  to  brace  his  jarred  nerves 
for  the  coming  ordeal. 

Not  that  Saxham  habitually  drugged:  that  craving  was  not 
yet  known  to  him.  But  the  habitual  intemperance  had  ex- 
acted even  from  his  iron  constitution,  its  forfeit  of  shakiness 
in  the  morning,  and  the  rare  sobriety  left  the  man  suffering 
and  unstrung. 

Looking  about  him  as  the  dose  began  its  work  of  stringing 
the  lax  nerves  and  stimulating  the  action  of  the  heart,  he  saw 
that  many  of  the  drawers  were  open,  a  costly  set  of  graduated 
scales  missing,  with  their  plush-lined  box.  .  .  . 

With  a  certain  premonition  of  what  would  next  be  missing, 
he  went  into  the  surgery.  A  case  of  silver-mounted  surgical 
instruments  had  vanished  from  a  shelf,  with  a  presentation 
loving-cup,  given  by  admirers  among  De  Boursy-Williams's 
patients  to  that  gifted  practitioner.  A  roll-top  desk  was  partly 
broken  open,  but  not  rifled,  the  American  boltlocks  having  de- 
fied the  clumsy  efforts  of  the  thief.  Koets,  the  Dutch  dispen- 
sarist,  had  cleared  out  of  Gueldersdorp,  under  cover  of  the 
previous  night,  crossing,  with  the  portable  property  reft  from 
the  accursed  Englander,  the  barbed-wire  fence  that  formed  the 
line  of  demarcation  between  the  British  Imperial  Forces  and 
the  Army  of  the  Transvaal  Republic.  He  had  meant  to  wait 
yet  another  day,  and  take  many  things  more,  but  the  coming 
of  those  verdoemte  soldiers  of  the  Engelsch  Commandant  to 
fetch  away  the  carboys  of  carbolic  acid  and  the  other  medical 
stores  had  roused  him  to  prompt  action. 

Later,  wearing  the  brass  badge  of  a  Surgeon  of  the  Army 
of  the  Transvaal  Republic,  Koets  ruled  a  Boer  Field-Hospital, 
fearlessly  slashing  his  way  into  the  confidence  of  the  United 
Republics  through  the  tough,  wincing  brawn  and  muscle  of 
Free  Stater  and  Transvaaler.  It  speaks  for  the  enduring 


194  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

-qualities   of   the   Boer   constitution   to   say   that   many  of  his 

patients  survived. 

***** 

But  the  brandy  in  the  decanter.  .  .   . 

How  it  beckoned  and  allured  and  tempted.  And  the  throat 
and  palate  of  the  man  were  parched  with  the  desire  of  it.  And 
yet,  a  moment  before,  with  the  toils  about  his  feet,  Saxham  had 
wondered  at  the  thought  of  these  degraded  years  of  bondage. 
He  shook  his  head  sullenly  as  Taggart  repeated  his  question, 
and  went  away  to  wash  and  get  dressed. 

Then  he  meant  to  shake  off  his  companions  and  go  where 
he  could  quench  that  inward  fire.  He  loathed  them  as  they 
followed,  chatting  pleasantly.  .  .  . 

But  above  the  hissing  of  the  hot  water  from  the  faucets  over 
trie  basins  came  presently  another  sound,  most  familiar  to  the 
ears  of  the  gossiping  Celts.  .  .  . 

"  Rifle-fire!  Out  on  the  veld  over  yonder."  MeFadyen's 
towel  waved  North.  "  Do  ye  hear  it?" 

"Ay,  do  I!  First  bluid  has  been  drawn.  And  to  which 
side?" 

Boom!  .  .  . 

The  Hospital  quivered  to  its  foundations  at  the  tremendous 
detonation.  Shattered  glass  fell  in  showers  of  fragments 
from  the  roof  of  the  operating  theatre,  as  the  force  of  the 
explosion  passed  beneath  the  buildings  in  a  surging  of  the 
ground  on  which  they  stood,  a  slow  wave  rolling  southwards, 
without  a  backward  draw. 

The  lavatory  door  had  jammed,  as  doors  will  jam  in  earth- 
quakes. Saxham  tore  it  open,  and  the  three  shirt-sleeved, 
ensanguined  men  ran  through  the  theatre,  strewn  with  the 
debris  from  the  roof,  and  through  the  double  doors  communi- 
cating with  the  passage,  populous  with  patients  who  should 
have  been  in  bed,  pursued  by  nurses  as  pale  and  shaken  as 
their  stampeding  charges.  The  rear  of  the  Hospital  faces 
North,  and  they  ran  down  a  corridor  simultaneously,  ending 
in  glass  doors,  and  tore  out  upon  the  back  stoep,  wide  and 
roomy,  and  full  of  deck  chairs  and  wicker  lounges. 

"  Do  ye  see  it?  Ten  thousand  salted  South  African  deevils. 
Do  ye  no  see  it?"  the  Surgeon-Major  yelled,  pointing  to  a 
monstrous  milk-white  soap-bubble-shaped  cloud  that  slowly 
rose  up  in  the  hot  blue  sky  of  the  North  and  hung  there, 
sullenly  brooding. 

"What  is  it,  Major?"  shouted  Saxham,  for  behind  them 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  195 

the  Hospital  was  full  of  clamour.  Nurses  and  dressers  were 
running  out  into  the  grounds  to  listen  and  question  and  con- 
jecture, the  barely  reclaimed  veld  beyond  the  palings  was 
black  with  hurrying,  shouting  men,  bandoliered,  and  carrying 
guns  of  every  kind  and  calibre,  from  the  venerable  gaspipe  of 
the  native  and  the  aged  but  still  useful  Martini-Henry  of  the 
citizen,  to  the  Lee-Metford  repeating  carbine,  and  the  German 
magazine  rifle  of  latest  delivery  to  the  troops  of  Imperial 
Majesty  at  Berlin.  Men  were  clustered  like  bees  on  the  flat 
tin  roofs  of  the  sheds  at  the  Railway  Works;  men  had  climbed 
the  signal-posts  and  were  looking  out  from  them  over  the  sea 
of  veld;  the  Volunteers  garrisoning  the  Cemetery  had  poured 
from  their  temporary  huts  and  dug-out  shelters,  and  were 
massed  on  the  top  of  their  sand-bag  mounds.  A  fair,  hand- 
some Staff  officer,  the  younger  of  the  two  men  who  had  ac- 
companied the  Colonel,  went  by  at  a  tearing  gallop,  mounted 
on  a  fine  grey  charger,  and  followed  by  an  orderly,  while  the 
pot-hat  and  truncheon  of  a  scared  native  constable  emerged 
timidly  from  the  gaping  jaws  of  a  rusty  water-cistern,  long 
dismissed  from  Hospital  use,  and  exiled  to  the  open  with  other 
rubbish  waiting  transference  to  the  scrap-heap ;  and  far  out 
upon  the  railway-line  that  vanished  in  the  yellowing  sea  of  veld 
an  unseen  engine  screeched  and  screeched.  .  .  . 

The  Chief,  in  his  pet  post  of  vantage  upon  the  roof  of 
Nixey's  Hotel,  lowered  his  binoculars  as  the  persistent  whistle 
kept  open.  The  lines  about  his  keen  eyes  and  mouth  curved 
into  a  cheerful  smile.  The  sound  was  coming  nearer,  and  pres- 
ently Engine  123  backed  into  view,  a  mile  or  so  from  waiting, 
expectant  Gueldersdorp,  and  snorting,  raced  at  full  speed  for 
her  home  in  the  railway-yard.  Her  driver  was  the  young  Irish- 
man from  the  County  Kildare,  and  her  stoker  hailed  from 
Shoreditch.  And  both  of  them  had  a  tale  to  tell  of  what  Tag- 
gart  had  called  the  Colonel's  double  surprise-packet,  to  a  tall 
man  whom  they  found  waiting  on  the  metals  by  the  Signal 
Cabin. 

"  Six  mile  from  the  start  sorra  a  yard  more  or  less,  sor,  I 
sees  a  comp'ny  o'  thim  divils  mustered  on  the  bog,  I  mane  the 
veld,  sorr — smokin'  their  pipes  an'  passin'  the  bottle,  an'  givin' 
the  overlook  to  a  gang  av  odthers,  that  was  rippin'  up  the  rails 
undher  the  directions  av  a  head-gaffer  wid  a  hat  brim  like  me 
granny's  tay-thray,  an'  a  beard  like  the  Prophet  Moses." 

"  I  sor  'is  whoppin'  big  'at  myself,  though  we  was  two  mile 
off  when  we  picked  the  beggars  out,"  the  guard  objected; 


196  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

"  but  'ow  could  you  twig  'is  beard  or  that  the  other  blokes  was 
smokin'?" 

"  Did  ye  ever  know  a  Dutch  boss  av  any  kind  clane-shaved 
an'  not  hairy-faced?"  was  Kildare's  just  retort,  "or  see  a 
crowd  av  Doppers  gathered  together  that  the  blue  smoke  av 
the  Blessed  Creature  was  not  curlin'  out  av  their  mouths  an' 
ears  an'  noses,  an'  Old  Square  Face  or  Van  der  Hump  makin' 
the  rounds?" 

"  You  thought  the  blokes  on  the  metals  was  a  workin'  gang 
of  our  chaps  at  the  fust  go  off,"  complained  the  guard,  "  an' 
you  opened  the  whistle  to  warn  'em !  " 

"  He  did  that  for  sure,"  put  in  the  Cardiff  stoker.  "  But 
he  was  tipping  me  the  wink  while  he  did  it,  so  he  was;  as  much 
as  to  say  he  knew  they  were  Boers  all  the  time." 

"  Would  they  have  stopped  where  they  was,  well  widin 
range,  av  I  had  let  on  I  knew  they  was  a  parcel  av  unwashed 
Dutchmen?"  demanded  Kildare  hotly.  "Would  they  have 
hung  on  as  I  pushed  her  towards  thim — would  they  have 
stopped  to  watch  me  uncouplin'  the  two  thrucks,  smilin'  wid 
simple  interest  in  their  haythen  faces,  av  they  had  not  taken 
me  for  a  suckin'  lamb  in  oily  overalls  that  took  themselves  for 
sheep  av  the  same  fold  ?  " 

"  They  got  a  bit  suspicious  when  we  steamed  orf,"  said  the 
guard;  "more  than  a  bit  suspicious,  they  did." 

"  They  took  the  thruck  for  the  Armoured  Thrain,"  re- 
counted Kildare,  with  a  radiant  smile  illuminating  a  counte- 
nance of  surpassing  griminess,  "  an5  they  rode  to  widin  range, 
an'  got  off  their  hairies,  an'  dhropped  in  a  volley  just  to  insinse 
them  they  took  to  be  squattin'  down  inside  them  insijious 
divizes,  into  what  they  would  be  gettin'  if  they  put  up  the  heads 
av  them."  He  mopped  his  brimming  eyes  with  a  handful  of 
!cotton  waste,  not  innocent  of  lubricating  fluid.  "  Tower  av 
Ivory!  'twas  grand  to  see  the  contimpt  av  thim  when  the  cow- 
ards widin  did  not  reply.  '  Donder ! '  says  the  gaffer  in  the 
tay-thray  hat  and  the  beard  like  the  grandfather  av  all  the 
billygoats,  '  Is  this,'  he  says,  '  the  British  pluck  they  talk  about? 
Show  thim  verdant  English  a  Dutchman  behind  a  geweer,'  he 
says,  an'  that's  what  they  call  a  gun  in  their  dirty  lingo  '  an' 
they  lie  down  wid  all  four  legs  in  the  air  like  a  puppy  that  sees 
the  whip.  Plug  thim  again,  my  sons,'  says  he,  '  an'  wid  the 
blessin'  av  Heaven,  we'll  stiffen  the  lot ! ' ' 

"  You  could  never  hear  him,  so  you  could  not,  not  at  all  that 
distance,"  the  Cardiff  stoker  objected. 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  197 

"  Could  I  not  see  him,  ye  blind  harper,  swearin'  in  dumb 
show,  an'  urgin'  thim  to  shoot  sthraight  for  the  honour  av  the 
Republic  an'  give  the  rooibatchers  Jimmy  oh!  Gz-lant-ly  they 
respondid,  battherin'  the  sides  av  the  mystarious  locomotive 
containin'  the  bloody  an'  rapacious  soldiery  av  threacherous 
England  wid  nickel-plated  Mauser  bullets,  ontil  she  hiccoughs 
indacintly  an'  wid  a  bellow  to  bate  St.  Fin  Barr's  bull,  kicks 
herself  to  pieces! " 

"  She  did  so,  surely,"  affirmed  the  Cardiff  stoker.  "  Surely 
she  did  so." 

"  Tell  the  Colonel  'ow  the  engine  jumped  right  off  the 
metals,"  advised  the  guard. 

"  Clane  she  did,"  went  on  Kildare  jubilantly,  "  an'  rattled 
Davis  an'  me  inside  the  cab  like  pays  in  an  iron  pod.  See  the 
funny-bone  I  sthripped  agin'  the  side  av  her."  He  exhibited 
a  raw  elbow  for  the  inspection  of  the  Chief.  "  An'  when 
Davis  gets  the  betther  av  the  rest  av  the  black  that's  on  him 
wid  soft  soap  an'  hot  wather,  there's  an  oi  he'll  not  wash  off." 

"  The  brake-handle  did  that,  it  did  so,"  said  Davis,  touching 
the  optic  tenderly.  But  Kildare  was  answering  a  question  of 
the  Chief's. 

"Killed!  Wisha,  yarra!  av  Oi'd  left  a  dozen  an  twenty 
to  the  back  av  that  sthretched  on  the  bog  behind  me,  it's  a 
glad  man  I'd  be  to  have  it  to  tell  ye,  sorr.  But  barrin'  they 
wor'  blown  to  smithereens  entirely,  not.  a  livin'  man  or  horse 
av  thim  did  I  see  dead  at  all,  But  the  Sergeant  an'  the 
Reconnoithrin'  Party  will  asy  know  the  place — asy — by  the 
thundherin'  big  hole  that's  knocked  in  the  Permanent  Way 
there,  sizable  enough  to  bury.  .  .  ."  He  paused,  for  once  at 
a  loss. 

"  Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram,"  suggested  Davis,  who,  as 
a  Bible  Baptist,  had  a  fund  of  Scripture  knowledge  upon  which 
he  occasionally  drew,  "with  their  families  and  their  pavilions 
and  all  their  substance.  .  .  ." 

"  Av  Cora  was  there,"  said  Kildare,  "  she  was  disguised  as 
a  Dutchman,  for  sorrow,  an'  oi  clapped  on  any  human  baste 
that  was  not  a  square-buttocked  Boer  in  tan-cord  throusers. 
Thank  you,  sorr,  your  Honour,  an'  good  luck  to  yourself  an' 
all  av  us.  An'  we'll  dhrink  your  Honour's  health  wid  it." 

"We  will  so!"  agreed  Davis,  as  the  sovereign,  dropped 
into  his  own  twice-greased  palm,  vanished  in  the  recesses  of  his 
black  and  oleaginous  overalls. 

"  Thenkee,  sir.     You're  a  gentleman,  sir!"  the  guard  ac- 


198  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

knowledged,  touching  his  cap  and  concealing  the  gold  COIA 
slid  into  his  own  ready  hand  with  professional  celerity. 

"  Begob !  an'  you  might  have  tould  the  Colonel  somethin* 
that  was  news,"  commented  Kildare,  as  the  tall,  active  figure 
stepped  lightly  over  the  metals  and  passed  up  the  ramp,  and 
123  trundled  on  over  the  cavities,  and  backed  into  the  engine- 
shed  amidst  a  salvo  of  cheers  and  hand-clapping. 

The  Colonel  whistled  his  pleasant  little  tune  quite  through 
as,  the  Reconnoitring  Party  despatched  to  the  scene  of  the  ex- 
plosion, he  went  contentedly  back  to  luncheon  at  Nixey's. 
True,  Kildare  had  said,  and  as  the  Sergeant,  in  command  re- 
gretfully testified  later,  said  correctly,  that  neither  Boer  nor 
beasts  had  been  put  out  of  action  bv  the  flying  debris.  A  poor 
reprisal  had  been  made  in  cfle  opinion  of  some  malcontents, 
for  the  act  of  War  committed  by  the  forces  of  the  Republic 
in  crossing  the  Border,  in  cutting  the  telegraph  lines,  and  de- 
stroying the  railway-bridge.  But  the  moral  result  was  any- 
thing but  trifling,  in  its  effect  upon  the  Boer  mind.  The 
"  new  square  gun  "  became  a  proverb  of  dread,  inspiring  a 
salutary  fear  of  more  traps  of  the  same  kind,  "  set  by  that 
slim  duyvel,  the  English  Commandant,"  and  threw  over  the 
innocent  stretch  of  veld  outside  those  trivial  sand-bagged  de- 
fences the  glamour  of  the  Mysterious  and  the  Unknown.  No 
solid  Dutchman  welcomed  the  idea  of  soaring  skywards  in  a 
multitude  of  infinitesimal  fragments,  in  company  with  other 
Free  Staters  or  sons  of  the  Transvaal  Republic  similarly  re- 
duced. 

No  more  boasts  on  the  part  of  Bronnckers,  General  in  com- 
mand of  those  massed,  menacing,  united  laagers  on  the  Border, 
-seven  miles  from  Gueldersdorp  as  the  crow  flies.  No  more 
.imaginative  promises  with  reference  to  the  taking  of  the 
•small,  defiant  hamlet  before  breakfast,  wiping  out  the  garrison 
,to  a  rooinek,  and  starting  <-n  the  homeward  march  refreshed 
;with  coffee  and  biltong,  and  driving  the  townspeople  before 
'them  as  prisoners  of  War.  The  desperate  perils  presented  by 
the  conjectural  and  largely  non-existent  mine  were  thence- 
forth to  loom  largely  and  luridly  in  the  telegrams  that  went 
up  to  Pretoria. 

"There's  a  lot  in  bluff,  you  know,"  that  "slim  duyvel," 
the  Commandant  of  the  rooineks,  said  long  afterwards.  "And 
we  bluffed  about  the  mines,  real  and  dummy,  for  all  we  were 
worth!" 

So,    possibly   with   premonition   of   the   telegram    that   was 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  199 

even  then  clicking  out  its  message  at  Pretoria,  there  was  a  note 
of  satisfaction  in  the  whistle  out.  of  keeping  with  the  execu- 
tion actually  done,  as  Nixey's  Hotel  came  in  sight  with  the 
Union  Jack  floating  over  it,  denoting  that,  all 'was  well.  That 
flagstaff,  with  its  changing  signals,  was  to  dominate  the  popular 
pulse  ere  long.  But  in  these  days  it  merely  denoted  Staff 
•Quarters,  and  War,  with  its  grim  accompanying  horrors, 
seemed  a  long  way  off. 

A  white-gowned  European  nursemaid  on  the  opposite 
street-corner  waved  and  shrieked  to  her  deserting  elder 
charges,  and  the  Chief's  quick  eye  noted  that  the  small,  sun- 
burned, active,  bare  legs  of  the  boy  and  girl  in  cool  sailor-suits 
of  blue-and-white  linen  twill,  were  scampering  in  his  direc- 
tion. He  knew  his  fascination  for  children,  and  instinctively 
slackened  his  stride  as  they  came  up,  abreast  now,  and  shyly 
hand  in  hand: 

"  Mister  Colonel  .  .  .  ?  "  The  speaker  touched  the  ex- 
pansive brim  of  a  straw  sailor  hat  with  a  fine  assumption  of 
adult  coolness. 

"  Quite  right,  and  who  are  you  ?  " 

The  small  boy  hesitated,  plainly  at  a  nonplus.  The  round- 
eyed  girl  tugged  at  the  boy's  sailor  jumper,  whispering: 

"  I  saided  he  wouldn't  know  you!  " 

"  I  fought  he  would.  Because  Mummy  said  he  wemem- 
bered  our  names  ve  uvver  night  at  ve  Hotel  .  .  .  when  he 
promised  .  .  .  about  ve  animals  from  Wodesia  ...  all  made 
of  mud,  an'  feavers,  and  bits  of  fur  .  .  ." 

Memory  gave  up  the  missing  names,  helped  by  those  boyish 
replicas  of  the  candid  clear  grey  eyes  of  the  Mayor's  wife,  shin- 
ing under  the  drooping  plume  of  fair  hair. 

"  Mummy  was  quite  right,  Hammy,  and  Berta  was  wrong, 
because  I  remember  your  names  quite  well,  you  see.  And  the 
birds  and  beasts  and  insects  are  in  a  box  at  my  quarters.  Come 
and  get  them." 

'If  Anne  doesn't  kick  up  a  wow?"  hesitated  Hammy,  his 
small  brown  hand  already  in  the  larger  one. 

"  We'll  arrange  it  with  Anne."  He  waited  for  the  arrival 
of  the  white-canopied  perambulator  and  its  fluttering-ribboned 
guardian  to  say,  with  a  tone  and  smile  that  won  her  instant 
suffrages:  "  I'm  going  to  borrow  these  children  for  a  minute 
or  so.  Will  you  come  into  the  shade  and  rest?  I  promise  not 
to  keep  you  long." 

Beauvayse  and  Lady  Hannah's  Captain  Bingo,  relieved  from 


200  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

lookout  duty,  and  descending  in  quest  of  food  from  the  Chief's 
particular  eyrie  on  the  roof  of  Nixey's  Hotel,  heard  shrieks 
of  infant  laughter  coming  from  the  coffee-room.  Knives, 
forks,  and  glasses  had  been  ruthlessly  swept  from  the  upper 
end  of  one  of  the  tables  laid  for  the  Staff  luncheon,  and  across 
the  fair  expanse  of  linen,  pounded  into  whiteness  and  occasional 
holes  by  the  vigorous  thumpers  of  the  Kaffir  laundry-women, 
meandered  a  marvellous  procession  of  quagga  and  koodoo, 
rhino  and  hartebeest,  lion  and  giraffe,  ostrich  and  elephant, 
modelled  by  the  skilful  hands  of  Matabele  toy-makers. 
Tarantula,  with  wicked  bright  eyes  of  shining  berries,  brought 
up  the  rear,  with  the  bee,  and  the  mole-cricket,  and,  with 
bulgy  brown,  white  striped  body  and  long  wings  importantly 
crossed  behind  its  back,  a  tsetse  of  appallingly  gigantic 
size.  .  .  . 

"  Oh,  fank  you,  Mister  Colonel,"  Hammy  was  saying,  with 
shining  eyes  of  rapture  fixed  upon  the  glorious  ones ;  "  and  is 
they  weally  my  own,  my  vewy  own,  for  good?" 

"  Yours  and  Berta's,  really  and  for  good." 

"  And  won't  you  " — Hammy's  magnificent,  effort  at  disin- 
terestedness brought  the  tears  into  his  eyes — "  won't  you  want 
vem  to  play  wif ,  ever  yourself  ?  " 

The  deft,  hands  swept  the  birds  and  beasts,  with  tarantula 
and  tsetse,  into  the  wooden  box,  and  lifted  the  children  from 
their  chairs,  as  Captain  Bingo  and  Beauvayse,  following  the 
D.A.A.G.,  came  in,  brimming  with  various  versions  of  what 
had  happened  out  there  on  the  veld.  .  .  . 

"  I  have  other  things  to  play  with  just  now,  Hammy.  Run 
along  with  Berta  now.  You'll  find  your  nurse  in  the 
hall." 

Berta  put  up  her  face  confidently  to  be  kissed.  Hammy,' 
in  manly  fashion,  offered  a  hand — the  left — the  right  arm  be- 
ing occupied  with  the  box  of  toys.  As  Berta's  little  legs 
scampered  through  the  door,  he  delayed  to  ask: 

"What  are  your  playfings,  Mister  Colonel?" 

"Live  men  and  big  guns,  just  now,  Hammy;  and  chances 
and  issues,  and  results  and  risks." 

The  plume  of  fair  hair  fell  back,  clearing  the  candid  grey 
eyes  as  Hammy  lifted  up  his  face,  confidently  lisping: 

"  I  don't  quite  fink  I  know  what  wesults  and  wisks  are,  but 
I'd  like  to  play  wif  the  live  men  an'  the  big  guns  too  some- 
times ...  if  you  didn't  want  vem  always?" 

"  We'll  see  about  it,  Hammy,  when  you're  grown  up." 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  201 

"  Good-bye,  Mister  Colonel.  And  I  would  lend  you  my 
beasts  an'  tings,  because  I  know  you  wouldn't  bweak 
them?" 

"  See  that  Berta  has  her  share  in  them  meanwhile.  Off  with 
you,  now ! " 

Later,  in  the  seclusion  of  the  connubial  bedchamber,  said 
Captain  Bingo,  dressing  for  dinner,  the  last  time  for  many 
months,  as  it  was  to  prove: 

"  What  do  you  suppose  was  the  Chief's  next  move,  after  the 
engine  and  tender  got  in,  and  the  crowd  hoorayed  him  back 
from  the  Railway  Works?  No  use  your  guessin',  though. 
Even  a  woman  wouldn't  have  expected  to  find  him  playin' 
Noah's  Ark  in  the  coffee-room  with  the  Mayor's  two  kids!  " 

"  I  like  that !  "  said  Lady  Hannah  meditatively,  arranging 
the  Pompadour  transformation,  not  apparently  the  worse  for 
the  candle  accident  of  the  previous  night. 

"  Because  you're  a  woman  and  sentimental,"  said  her  spouse, 
wrestling  with  a  cuff-link. 

"  No ;  because  I  am  a  woman  whose  instinct,  tells  her  that 
nothing  will  seem  too  big  for  a  man  in  whom  nothing  is  too 
small.  And — what  an  incident  for  a  paragraph!" 

He  grinned:  "With  headin's  in  thunderin'  big  capitals. 
...  '  The  Soldier  Hero  Sports  with  the  Babbling  Babe. 
.  .  .  The  Defender  of  British  Prestige  at  Gueldersdorp  puts 
in  Half  an  Hour  at  Cat's-Cradle  ere  the  Armoured  Train 
toddles  Out  with  the  B.S.A.P.  to  give  Beans  to  the  Booming 
Boer!'" 

She  darted  at  him,  caught  him  by  the  lapels  .  .  .  made  him 
look  at  her. 

"It's  true?     You  really  mean  it?     The  ball  begins?" 

"  Upon  the  honour  of  a  hen-pecked  husband — before  day- 
break to-morrow,  you'll  hear  the  music." 

She  sparkled  with  delight. 

"  Oh,  poor,  unlucky,  humdrum  women  at  home  in  England, 
walking  with  the  shooters,  or  lolling  in  hammocks  under  trees, 
and  trying  to  flirt  with  fat.  City  financiers  or  vapid  young  at- 
taches of  Legation!  I  shall  take  the  Irish  mare,  and  borrow 
an  orderly,  and  ride  out  to  see  a  Real  Action !  " 

His  round  pink  face  grew  long.     "The  devil  you  will!" 

"  The  devil  I  won't,  you  mean.  Why,  for  what  else  under 
the  sky  did  I  come  out  here  but  the  glorious  chance  of  War  ?  " 
Her  impatient  foot  tapped  the  floor.  He  recognized  the  warn- 
ing of  domestic  battle,  glowered^  and  gave_in. 


202  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"  Well,  if  you  get  chipped,  don't  blame  me.  There's  about 
as  much  cover  on  a  baccarat-table  as  you'll  find  on  that  small- 
bush  veld." 

"  All  the  better  for  seeing  things,  my  dear ! "  She  gave 
him  a  radiant  glance  over  her  shoulder  as  she  snapped  her 
diamond  necklace. 

"  You'll  see  things  you  won't  enjoy.  Mind  that.  Unless 
the  expedition  ends  in  sheer  fizzle." 

"  I'll  pray  that  it  mayn't!  " 

"  I'd  pray  to  have  you  much  more  like  the  ordinary  woman 
who  funks  raw-head-and-bloody-bones  if  I  thought  it  would  be 
any  good ! " 

"My  poor  old  boy,  it's  thirty  years  too  late.  You  ought 
to  have  begun  while  I  was  crying  In  the  cradle.  And — I  was 
under  the  impression  that  you  married  me  because  you  found 
me  different  from  the  ruck.  And  besides — think  of  my 
paper!" 

"  Damn  the  rag!     I  think  of  my  wife!  " 

She  swept  him  a  curtsy: 

"Cela  va  sans  dire!  " 

"  And  how  a  woman  of  your  birth  and  breedin'  can  dream 
of  nothin'  else  but  doin'  somethin'  that'll  make  you  notorious 
— set  the  smart  crowd  gabblin'  and  gapin'  and  crushin'  to 
stare — is  more  than  I  can  understand !  " 

She  flashed  round  upon  him.  "  You  have  the  wrong  word ! 
Notoriety — and  social  divorcee  or  big-hatted  music-hall  high- 
kicker  can  have  that — if  only  they've  kicked  high  enough ! 
Popularity  is  what  I'd  have  if  I  could — and  only  the  People 
can  give  it — as  Brutus  and  Cromwell  and  Napoleon  knew!  " 

He  admitted  that  those  old  Roman  johnnies  who  jawed  in 
the  Forum  knew  what  they  were  about,  but  added  that  the 
Puritan  chap  with  the  wart  on  his  nose  was  a  thundering  old 
humbug,  ending  triumphantly:  "And  we  whacked  old  Bony 
at  Waterloo!  And — suppose  you  stop  a  Boer  bullet  and  get 
knocked  out — where  do  I  come  in  ?  " 

She  jangled  out  her  shrillest  laugh.  "  Behind  the  coffin  as 
Chief  Mourner,  I  suppose.  And  you'll  tack  on  the  orthodox 
black  sleeve-band,  and  look  out  for  Number  Two.  And 
choose  the  ordinary  kind,  who  funks  raw-head  and  all  the 
rest  of  it,  for  the  next  venture.  But.  I  prophesy  you'll  be 
bored.  It's  settled  about  Sheila  and  the  orderly  ?  " 

He  nodded. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  203 

"  Righto ;  but  there'll  be  two  troopers,  not  one.  And  you'll 
be  under  the  Corporal's  orders  about  range,  and  distance,  and 
keepin'  out  of  the  hands  of — the  other  side.  You  don't,  abso- 
lutely yearn  to  be  killed  or  taken  prisoner,  I  suppose?" 

Her  heart  beat  high  at  the  latter-named  eventuality.  She 
saw  London  rushing  to  read  of  the  thrilling  seizure  and  the  yet 
more  thrilling  escape  of  the  Lady  War  Correspondent,  attached 
to  H.I.M.  forces  on  the  Frontier: 

Who  got  clean  away,  mind  you,  with  complete  information 
of  the  strategic  plans  of  the  General  in  command  of  the 
enemy's  laagers,  sewn  inside  her  corsets  or  hidden  in  her  shoes ! 

Bingo  little  dreamed  of  the  definite  plan  seething  under  his 
little  wife's  transformation  coiffure.  It  had  matured  since 
her  meeting  on  the  railway-journey  from  Cape  Town  with  an 
interesting  personality.  A  big,  brown-bearded  Johannes- 
burger,  with  light  queer  eyes,  oddly  set,  reticent  at  first,  but 
more  interesting  after  his  confidence  had  been  gained. 

Van  Busch  he  had  named  himself.  Of  the  British  South 
African  War  Intelligence  Bureau.  That  man  knew  how  to 
value  women.  And  he  had  proved  them  at  what  he  called 
the  resting  game. 

"  With  nerve  and  jests  like  yours,  and  plenty  of  money  for 
palm-oil,"  Van  Busch  had  said,  and  winked,  signifying  that 
there  were  no  lengths  to  which  a  woman  of  Lady  Hannah 
Wrynche's  capabilities  might  not  go.  And  he  had  slipped  into 
her  hand  a  card  scrawled  with  an  address  where  he  might  be 
got  at  in  case  .  .  . 

The  pencilled  oblong  of  soiled  pasteboard  card  was  in  a  se- 
cret compartment  of  her  handbag.  Under  the  alias  of  W. 
Bough,  Transport  Agent  and  Stock-dealer,  Van  Busch  was  to 
be  communicated  with  at  a  farmstead  some  thirty  miles  north. 

The  spice  of  adventure  her  palate  craved  could  be  had  by 

communicating  with  Van  Busch  Bough.  After  that 

Well!  She  had  her  plan  .  .  . 

She  tied  her  husband's  white  tie,  took  him  by  the  ears,  kissed 
him  warmly  on  each  side  of  his  large  pink  face,  glowing  with 
blushes  evoked  by  her  unwonted  display  of  affection,  and  led 
him  away  to  dinner,  her  mental  vision  seeing  prophetic  broad- 
sheets papering  the  kerbs  of  Piccadilly,  the  ears  of  her  imagina- 
tion making  celestial  melody  of  those  raucous  yells: 

"  Speshul  Edition!  Hextry  Speshul  Edition!  'Ere  y'are, 
sir;  on'y  a 'a'penny.  SPESHUL!" 


204  ONE   BRAVER   THING 


XXVII 

FOR  nearly  two  months,  from  dawn  until  dark,  Gueldersdorp 
had  squatted  on  her  low-topped  hill  in  a  screaming  blizzard 
of  shrapnel  and  Mauser  bullets.  Never  a  town  of  imposing 
size  or  stately  architecture,  see  her  now  a  battered  hamlet  of 
gaping  walls,  and  shattered  roofs,  and  wrecked  chimneys; 
staring  defiance  through  glassless  windows  like  the  blind  eye- 
holes in  the  mouldered  House  that  once  has  held  the  living 
thought  of  man.  From  dawn  until  dark  the  ancient  seven- 
pounders  of  her  batteries  banged  and  grumbled,  her  Maxims 
rattled  defiance  from  Kopje  Fort,  and  the  Nordenfelt  released 
its  showers  of  effective,  death-dealing  little  projectiles.  Scant 
news  from  outside  trickled  into  the  town.  Grumer,  with  his 
Brigade,  was  guarding  the  Drifts,  and  when  the  Relief  might 
be  expected  was  now  a  moss-grown  topic  of  general  conversa- 
tion in  Gueldersdorp. 

And  within  her  girdle  of  trenches,  stern,  grimy,  haggard  men 
lived,  cheek  to  the  heated  rifle-breech,  and  ate,  and  snatched 
brief  spells  of  sleep,  booted  and  bandoliered,  and  with  the 
loaded  weapon  ready  for  gripping.  Since  the  attack  on  Maxim 
Kopje  had  choked  the  Hospital  with  wounded  men  and  dotted 
the  Cemetery  with  little  white  crosses,  nothing  of  much  note 
had  occurred.  The  armoured  train  had  done  good  service,  and 
the  Baraland  Rifle  Volunteers  had  carried  out  their  surprise 
against  the  enemy's  western  camp  one  fine  dark  night,  helped 
by  a  squadron  of  the  Irregulars,  with  slight  casualties,  and 
the  loss  of  nineteen  horses  out  of  twenty-five. 

The  Convent  of  the  Holy  Way  stood  empty  and  deserted 
in  its  shrapnel-littered  garden-enclosure. 

From  east,  west,  north,  and  south  the  deadly  iron  messengers 
had  come,  making  sore  havoc  of  this  poor  house  of  Christ. 
"  When  the  walls  fall  about  our  ears,  Colonel,"  the  Mother- 
Superior  had  declared,  "  it  will  be  time  to  leave  them."  They 
were  lacework  now,  with  a  confusion  of  bare  rafters  overhead, 
over  which  streamed,  as  if  in  mockery,  the  Red-Cross  Flag. 
Grim  figures,  like  geometrical  problems  gone  mad,  were  made 
by  water  and  gaspipes  torn  from  their  bedding,  and  twisted 
as  if  by  the  hands  of  giants  in  cruel  play.  The  little  iron  bed- 
steads of  the  Sisters  and  the  holy  symbols  over  them  were  the 
only  articles  missing  from  the  cells,  revealed  in  section  by  the 
huge  gaps  in  the  masonry.. 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  205 

The  Tabernacle  of  the  chapel  altar,  void  of  the  Unspeakable 
mystery  it  had  housed,  fluttered  its  rearward  curtains  through 
the  wreckage  of  the  east  wall,  and  the  cheap  little  stained- 
glass  window,  where  the  Shepherds  and  the  Magi  had  bowed 
before  the  Virgin  Mother  and  the  Divine  Child.  Within  sight 
of  their  ruined  home,  the  Sisterhood  had  found  refuge.  An 
underground  dwelling  had  been  dug  for  them  in  the  garden 
before  an  abandoned  soft-brick-and-corrugated-iron  house, 
formerly  inhabited  by  one  of  the  head  officials  of  the  Railway, 
a  personage  of  Dutch  extraction  and  Boer  sympathies  at  present 
sequestered  beneath  the  yellow  flag  of  the  town  Jail  for  their 
too  incautious  manifestation,  while  his  wife  and  young  family 
were  inhabitants  of  the  Women's  Laager.  And  from  their 
subterranean  burrow  the  Sisters  carried  on  their  work  of 
mercy  as  cheerfully  as  though  their  Order  had  been  originally 
one  of  Troglodytes,  nursing  the  sick  and  wounded,  cooking  and 
washing  for  the  convalescent,  comforting  the  bereaved,  and 
tending  the  many  orphans  of  the  siege. 

South  lay  the  laager  of  the  refugees.  To  the  westward 
within  the  ring  of  trenches  and  about  a  mile  and  a  half  from 
the  town,  was  the  Women's  Laager,  visited  not  seldom  by  the 
enemy's  shell-fire,  in  spite  of  the  Red-Cross  Flag.  Fever  and 
rheumatism,  pneumonia  and  diphtheria  stalked  among  the 
dwellers  in  these  tainted  asylums,  claiming  their  human  toll. 
Women  languished  and  little  children  pined  and  withered,, 
dying  for  lack  of  exercise  and  fresh  air,  with  the  free  veld 
spreading  away  on  all  sides  to  the  horizon,  and  the  burning 
blue  South  African  sky  overhead.  Famine  had  not  yet  ap- 
peared among  the  Europeans,  though  grisly  black  spectres  in 
Kaffir  blankets  haunted  the  refuse-heaps,  and  fought  with 
gaunt  dogs  for  picked  bones  and  empty  meat  tins,  and  were 
found  dead  not  unseldom,  after  full  meals  of  strange  and 
dreadful  things.  Fresh  meat  was  still  to  be  had,  though  the 
cattle  and  sheep  of  the  Barotse  had  been  thinned  by  raids  on 
the  part  of  the  enemy,  and  poor  grazing.  Shell  and  rifle-fire 
not  infrequently  spared  the  butcher  trouble,  so  that  your  joints 
were  sometimes  weirdly  shaped.  But  they  were  joints,  and 
there  was  plenty  of  the  preserved  article  in  Kriel's  Warehouse 
and  at  the  Army  Service  Stores.  Tea  and  coffee  were  be- 
coming rare  and  precious,  the  sparkling  draught  of  lager  was 
to  be  had  only  in  remembrance;  the  aromatic  beer  was  all 
drunk  up,  and  the  stone-ginger  was  three  shillings  a  bottle. 
Whisky  was  to  be  had  at  the  jprice  of  jiquid  gold,  brandy  was 


206  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

treasured  above  rubies,  and  served  out  sparingly  by  the  Hand 
of  Authority,  as  medicine  in  urgent  cases. 

You  could  get  vegetables  from  the  Chinaman,  who  con- 
tinued to  cultivate  onions,  cabbages,  potatoes,  and  melons  in 
the  market-gardens  about  the  town,  imperturbable  under  shot 
and  shell,  his  large  straw  hat  affording  an  admirable  target 
from  the  Boer  sniper's  point  of  view,  as  metaphorically  he 
gathered  his  fat  harvest  of  dollars  from  the  soil.  What  you 
could  not  get  for  any  amount  of  dollars  was  peace  and  rest, 
clean  air,  and  space  to  stretch  your  cramped-up  limbs  in,  until 
Sunday  came,  bringing  the  Truce  of  God  for  Englishman  and 
Transvaaler. 

The  Hospital,  like  each  of  the  smaller  hospitals  that  had  sprung 
from  the  parent  stalk,  was  crowded.  The  operating  theatre 
had  been  turned  into  a  ward  where  the  lane  between  the  beds 
just  gave  room  for  a  surgeon  or  a  nurse  to  pass,  and  hourly 
the  cry  went  up:  "Room,  more  room  for  the  wounded  and 
sick!"  And  among  these  Saxham  worked,  night  and  day,  like 
a  man  upheld  by  forces  superhuman. 

"  By-and-by,"  he  would  say  impatiently,  when  they  urged 
him  to  take  rest,  and  bend  his  black  brows  and  hunch  those 
great,  shoulders  of  his  to  the  work  again. 

"  Ye  have  a  demon,  man,"  said  Taggart,  Major  of  the 
R.A.M.C.,  himself  a  haggard-eyed  but  tireless  labourer  in  the 
red  fields  of  pain.  "  At  three  o'  the  smalls  ye  got  to  your 
bed,  and  at  six  ye  made  the  rounds,  at  seven  ye  were  dealing 
with  a  select  batch  o'  shell-fire  an'  rifle-shot  casualties — our 
friends  outside  being  a  gey  sicht  better  marksmen  when  re- 
freshed by  a  guid  nicht's  sleep ;  at  eight  ye  had  had  your  bit 
o'  breakfast,  and  got  doon  your  gun  an'  gane  oot  for  an  hour 
o'  calm,  invigorating  sniping  on  the  veld  before  returning 
punctually  at  ten  o'  the  clock  to  attack  the  business  o'  the  day, 
wi'  a  bag  o'  twa  Boers  to  your  creedit." 

"  I  only  got.  one,  Major.  The  other  chap  hobbled  down 
bandaged,  upon  crutches,  to-day,  and  had  a  pot-shot  at  me  as 
I  lay  doggo  behind  my  particular  stone.  I  put  up  my  hat  on 
a  stick,  and — see !  "  Saxham  gravely  exhibited  a  felt  Service 
smasher  with  a  clean  hole  through  it,  an  inch  above  the  lining- 
edge.  "  He's  a  snowy-locked',  hoary-bearded,  Fatirer  Noah- 
hatted  patriarch  of  seventy  at  least,  and  very  proud  of  his 
shooting,  and  I've  let  him  think  he  got  me  this  time  just  to 
make  him  happy  for  one  night.  To-morrow  he  is  to  make  the 
painful  discovery  that  I  am  still  in  the  flesh." 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  207 

"Aweel,  awheel!  But  I  would  point  out.  to  ye  that  For- 
tune is  a  fickle,  tricksy  jade,  and  the  luck  o'  the  game  might 
fall  to  your  patriarch  in  the  antediluvian  headgear  to-morrow." 

Then  the  luck  of  the  game,  thought  the  hearer,  deep  in  that 
wounded  heart  of  his,  would  not  only  be  with  the  patriarch. 
And  the  great  puzzle,  Life,  would  be  solved  for  good. 

Taggart  had  said  he,  Saxham,  had  a  demon.  He  could 
have  answered  that  only  by  hard,  unceasing,  unremitting  work, 
or,  when  no  more  work  was  there  to  do,  by  the  fierce  excite- 
ment of  those  grilling  hours  spent  lying  behind  the  stone,  was 
the  demon  to  be  kept  out.  Of  all  things  he  dreaded  inactivity, 
and  though  he  would  drop  upon  his  cot  in  the  tiny  bedroom 
that  had  been  a  Hospital  ward-pantry,  and  sleep  the  heavy 
sleep  of  weariness  the  moment  his  head  touched  the  pillow, 
yet  he  would  start  awake  after  an  hour  or  two,  parched  with 
that  savage,  unquenched  thirst,  and  drink  great  draughts  of  the 
brackish  well-water,  boiled  for  precaution's  sake,  and  tramp 
the  confined  space  until  the  grip  of  desire  grew  slack.  But  he 
had  never  once  yielded  since  the  night  when  a  man  with  the 
eye  and  voice  of  a  leader  among  men  had  come  to  the  house 
in  Harris  Street  and  taken  him  by  the  hand. 

Do  you  say  impossible,  that  the  man  in  whom  the  habit  of 
vice  had  formed  should  be  able  to  cast  off  his  degrading  weak- 
ness, like  a  shameful  garment,  by  sheer  force  of  will,  and  be 
sane  and  strong  and  masterful  again?  I  say,  possible  with  this 
man.  You  see  him  plucked  from  the  slough  by  the  strong 
hand  of  manly  fellowship,  and  nerved  and  strengthened,  if  only 
for  a  little  while,  to  play  the  game  for  the  sake  of  that  other 
man's  belief  in  him.  Such  influence  have  such  men  among 
their  fellows  for  good  or  for  ill. 

You  can  see  him  upon  this  brilliant  November  morning 
mounting  a  charger  lent  him  by  his  friend,  a  handsome  Waler 
full  of  mettle  and  spirit — oats  not  being  yet.  required  for  the 
support  of  men — and  calling  au  revoir  to  Taggart  as  he  rides 
away  from  the  Hospital  gates  followed  by  an  orderly  of  the 
R.A.M.C.  in  a  spider,  pulled  by  a  wiry,  shabby  little  Boer 
mare. 

"The  man  rides  like  a  foxhunter,"  commented  Taggart, 
noticing  the  ease  of  the  seat,  the  light  handling  of  the  rein, 
the  way  in  which  the  fidgety,  spirited  beast  Saxham  rode 
answered  to  the  gentling  hand  and  the  guiding  pressure  of  the 
rider's  knee,  as  a  sharp  storm  of  rifle-fire  swept  from  the 
enemy's  northern  trenches,  and  the  Mauser  bullets  spurted 


208  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

sand  between  the  wheels  of  the  spider  and  under  the  horses' 
bellies. 

Saxham  spurred  ahead,  the  spider  following.  The  bullet- 
pierced  grey  felt  smasher  hat,  a  manly  and  not  unpicturesque 
headgear,  sat.  on  the  man's  close-cropped  head  with  a  soldierly 
air  becoming  to  the  square,  opaque-skinned  face  that  had  power 
and  strength  and  virility  in  every  line  of  it.  The  blue  eyes, 
under  their  black  bar  of  meeting  eyebrows,  were  clear  now, 
and  the  short  aquiline  nose,  rough-hewn  but  not  coarse,  and 
the  grimly-tender  mouth  were  no  longer  thickened  ahd  swollen 
and  reddened  by  intemperance.  The  figure,  perfect  in  its 
manliness,  if  marred  by  the  too  heavy  muscular  development  of 
the  throat  and  the  slightly  bowed  shoulders,  looked  well  in 
the  tunic  of  Service  khaki,  the  Bedford  cords  and  putties  and 
spurred  brown  boots  that  had  replaced  the  worn  white  drills, 
the  blue  shirt  and  shabby  black  kamarband  and  canvas  shoes. 
Looking  at  Saxham,  even  with  knowledge  of  his  past,  you 
could  not  have  associated  a  personality  so  salient  and  striking, 
an  individuality  so  original  and  so  strong,  with  the  idea  of  the 
tipsy  wastrel,  wallowing  like  a  hog  in  self-chosen  degradation. 

The  Mother-Superior,  coming  up  the  ladder  leading  out  of 
her  underground  abode  as  the  horseman  and  the  attendant 
spider  drew  near,  thought  of  Bartolomeo  Colleoni,  as  you  see 
him,  last  of  the  great  Condottieri,  in  the  fresco  at  the  House 
of  Charity  in  Bergamo  to-day.  In  armour,  complete  without 
the  morion,  one  with  the  great  Flemish  warhorse,  he  sits 
carrying  the  baton  of  Captain-General,  given  him  by  the 
Doge  of  Venice,  in  the  pov--erful  hand  that  only  a  little  while 
before  aided  his  picked  men  of  the  infantry  to  pack  and  harden 
snow  about  the  granite  boulders  of  the  mountains  in  the  Val 
Seriana,  and  sent  the  giant,  snowballs  thundering  down,  crush- 
ing bloody  lanes  through  the  ranks  of  the  Venetian  cavalry 
massed  in  the  narrow  defile  below,  and  striking  chill  terror 
to  the  hearts  of  Doge  and  Prince  and  Senate. 

Only  the  batoit  was  a  well-worn  staghorn-handled  crop, 
Squire  Saxham's  gift,  together  with  a  hunter,  to  his  boy  Owen, 
at  seventeen.  It  was  one  of  the  few  relics  of  home  that  had 
•stayed  by  Saxham  during  his  wanderings. 

He  reined  up  now,  saluting  the  Mother-Superior  with 
marked  respect. 

"  Good-morning,  ma'am.     All  well  with  you  and  yours  ?  " 

She  answered  with  unusual  hesitation: 

"All  the  Sisters  are  well,  thank  you.     But — if  you  could 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  209 

spare  me  a  minute,  Dr.  Saxham,  there  is  a  question  I  should 
like  to  ask." 

"  As  many  minutes  as  you  wish,  ma'am.  It  is  not  your 
day  for  the  Hospital,  I  think?" 

"  Ah,  no ! "  she  said,  with  the  velvety  South  of  Ireland 
vowel-inflection.  "  We  keep  Wednesday  for  the  Women's 
Laager,  always.  Many  of  them  are  so  miserable,  poor  souls, 
about  their  husbands  and  sons  and  brothers  who  are  in  the 
trenches,  or  wTho  have  been  killed,  and  then  there  are  the 
children  to  be  cared  for  and  washed.  Not  only  the  siege 
orphans,  but  so  many  who  have  sick  or  neglectful  mothers.  It 
takes  us  the  whole  day  once  we  get  there." 

Saxham  dismounted  as  she  stooped  to  seize  the  end  of  a 
blue  cotton-covered  washing-basket  impelled  from  below  by  an 
ascending  Sister.  The  spider  pulled  up  under  cover  of  the 
brick-and-corrugated-iron  house  vacated  by  the  Railway  official, 
as  another  short  storm  of  riflery  cracked  and  rattled  among 
the  northern  foothills,  and  a  whistling  hurry  of  the  sharp- 
nosed  little  messengers  of  death  passed  through  Gueldersdorp. 
Some  of  t.hem  hit  and  flattened  on  the  gable  of  the  Railway 
official's  house,  one  went  through  the  leathern  splashboard  of 
the  spider.  Saxham  moved  instinctively  to  place  himself 
between  the  closely-standing  group  of  nuns  and  possible 
danger. 

"No,  no!"  they  cried,  as  one  woman,  their  placid,  cheer- 
ful tones  taking  a  shade  of  anxiety.  "  You  must  not  do 
that." 

"  I  know  you  are  all  well-seasoned,"  he  said,  looking  at  them 
with  the  smile  that  made  his  stern  face  changed  and  gentle. 

"  I  am  not  so  sure.  The  bullets  come  in  the  usual  way  of 
things.  We  take  our  chance  of  them,"  the  Mother-Superior 
answered.  But  she  pressed  her  lips  together  and  grew  pale 
as  a  faint  cry  came  up  from  the  subterranean  dwelling,  roofed 
with  sheets  of  corrugated  iron  laid  upon  steel  rails,  and  made 
bombproof  with  bags  of  earth.  And  Saxham,  looking  at  the 
fine  face,  with  its  wan  lines  of  fatigue  and  over-exertion,  and 
noting  the  deep  shadowy  caves  that  housed  the  great  luminous 
grey  eyes,  said: 

"  I  think  we  must  have  you  take  some  rest,  or  I  shall  be 
having  my  best  helper  on  my  hands  as  a  patient.  And  that 
won't  do,  you  know." 

"  No,  it.  would  not  do,"  she  said,  looking  fully  and  seriously 
at  him.  "  And  therefore  I  think  our  Lord  will  not  permit  it. 


210  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

But  If  He  should,  be  sure  another  will  rise  up  to  fill  my 
place." 

"  Whoever  your  successor  might  be,"  said  Saxham  sincerely, 
"  she  will  not  fulfil  my  ideal  of  an  absolutely  efficient  nurse, 
as  you  do.  So  from  the  personal,  if  not  the  altruistic  point 
of  view,  let  me  beg  you  to  be  careful." 

"  I  take  all  reasonable  care,"  she  told  him.  "  It  is  true, 
the  work  has  been  heavy  this  wreek;  but  to-morrow  is  Sunday, 
and  we  shall  rest  all  day  and  sleep  at  the  Convent.  Indeed, 
some  of  us  have  taken  it  in  turn  to  be  on  guard  there  every 
night,  or  nothing  would  be  left  us." 

"  I  understand." 

He  knew  how  prowlers  and  night-thieves  made  harvest  in 
the  darkness  among  the  deserted  dwellings  since  Police  and 
Town  Guardsmen  had  been  requisitioned  to  man  the  trenches. 
She  went  on: 

"  The  upper  story  of  the  house  is  sheer  wreck,  as  you  may 
see,  but  the  ground-floor  is  quite  habitable.  So  much  so  that 
if  the  shells  did  not  strike  the  poor  dear  place  so  often,  I 
should  suggest  your  turning  it  into  a  Convalescent  Home." 

"  We  may  have  to  try  the  plan  yet,"  said  Saxham.  "  The 
Railway  Institute  is  frightfully  overcrowded." 

"  And,"  she  told  him,  "  a  shell  struck  there  yesterday  even- 
ing, and  burst  in  the  larger  ward." 

"  I  had  not  heard  of  it,"  he  said.     "Was  anybody  hurt?" 

"  No  one,  thank  God !  But  the  fire  was  difficult  to  put  out, 
until  one  of  the  Sisters  thought  of  sand." 

"  It  was  an  incendiary  shell  ? "  Disgust  and  contempt 
swelled  his  deep-cut  nostrils  and  flamed  from  his  vivid  blue 
eyes.  "  And  yet  these  Kaiser's  gunners,  in  their  blue-and- 
white  Death  or  Glory  uniforms,  can  hardly  pretend  ignorance 
of  the  Geneva  Convention.  But — your  question?" 

"  It  is — children."  She  beckoned  to  the  two  nuns,  who 
stood  at  a  little  distance  apart  holding  the  washing-basket  be- 
tween them.  "  I  will  ask  you  to  go  on  slowly  before  me  with 
the  basket.  I  will  overtake  you  when  I  have  spoken  to  Dr. 
Saxham." 

"  Surely,  Reverend  Mother."  One  tall,  pale,  and  thin,  the 
other  round  and  rosy,  they  were  alike  in  the  placid,  cheerful 
serenity  of  their  good  eyes  and  readily  smiling  lips.  "  And 
won't  we  be  after  taking  the  bundle  ?  " 

"  No,  no!  It  is  heavy,  and  I  am  as  strong  as  both  of  you 
together." 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  211 

"  Very  well,   Reverend   Mother." 

They  were  obediently  moving  on. 

"  A  moment."  Saxham  stopped  them.  "  If  you  two  ladies 
have  no  objection  to  a  little  crowding,  the  spider  will  hold 
both  of  you  as  well  as  the  bundle  and  the  basket  of  washing. 
At  least,  it  looks  like  a  basket  of  washing?" 

All  three  laughed  as  they  accepted  his  offer,  assuring  him 
that  his  suspicions  were  correct.  For  neither  Kaffir  laundry- 
woman  or  Hindu  dhobi  would  go  down  any  more  to  the  wash- 
ing troughs  by  the  river,  for  fear  of  crossing  that  Stygian  flood 
of  blackness  rivalling  their  own,  supposing,  as  Beauvayse  once 
suggested,  that  there  is  a  third-class  ferry  for  niggers  and 
persons  of  colour.  And  from  the  waterworks  on  the  Eastern 
side  of  the  town  the  supply  had  been  cut  off  by  the  enemy, 
so  that  the  taps  of  Gueldersdorp  had  ceased  to  yield. 

Old  wells  and  springs  had  been  reopened,  cleaned,  and 
brought  into  use  for  drinking  purposes,  so  that  of  a  water- 
famine  there  could  be  no  fear.  But  the  element  became  ex- 
pensive when  retailed  by  the  tin  bucketful,  a  bath  a  rare 
luxury  when  the  contents  of  the  said  bucket  might  be  spilled 
or  thrown  away  in  the  course  of  the  gymnastics  wherewith  the 
sable  or  coffee-brown  bearer  sought  to  evade  the  travelling 
unexploded  shell  or  the  fan-shaped  charge  of  shrapnel.  There- 
fore, the  Sisters  had  turned  laundrywomen.  You  could  hear 
the  sound  of  Sister  Tobias's  smoothing-iron  coming  up  from 
below,  thump-thumping  on  the  blanketed  board. 

"And  where  do  you  think  we  get  the  water,  now?"  the 
rosy  Sister,  in  process  of  being  packed  into  the  spider,  leaned 
over  the  wheel  to  ask. 

"Not  from  the  Convent?"  Saxham  thought  of  the  strip 
of  veld  between  there  and  the  Hospital,  even  more  fraught 
with  peril  than  the  patch  he  had  just  traversed,  or  the  distance 
yet  to  be  covered  between  the  Sisters'  bombproof  and  the 
Women's  Laager,  where  Death,  with  the  red  sickle  in  his  flesh- 
less  hand,  stalked  openly  from  dawn  to  nightfall. 

"  From  the  Convent,  carrying  it  across  after  dark.  And 
no  well  there,  either,  that  you'd  get  the  fill  of  a  teaspoon  out 
of  " — a  "  tayspoon  "  it  was  in  the  rosy  Sister's  Dublin  brogue 
— "  and  yet  there's  water  there." 

"  But  how "  Saxham  began.  The  Mother-Superior 

shook  her  head,  and  the  rosy  Sister  was  silent. 

"  There  is  no  mystery  about  the  water  at  all.  It  is  very 
simple."  Standing  there  with  her  head  held  high  and  the 


212  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

fine,  free,  graceful  lines  of  her  tall  figure  outlined  by  the 
heavy  folds  of  the  now  worn  and  darned  black  habit,  and 
her  hands,  still  beautiful,  though  roughened  by  toil,  calmly 
folded  upon  her  scapular,  she  was  as  remarkable  and  noble 
a  figure,  it  seemed  to  Saxham,  as  the  golden  sunlight  could 
fall  upon  anywhere  in  the  world.  And  besides,  she  was  his 
right  hand  at  the  Hospital.  A  capable,  watchful,  untiring 
nurse — and  beauty  would  have  decked  her  in  his  surgeon's 
eyes  if  she  had  been  physically  ugly  or  deformed. 

"  There  is  no  mystery  whatever,  only  when  the  bombard- 
ment first  began  I  thought  of  the  waterworks,  and  that  one  of 
my  first  cares,  supposing  I  had  been  General  Bronnckers  " — 
she  smiled  slightly — "  would  have  been  to  operate  there.  So 
I  set  the  Sisters  to  work  at  filling  every  empty  barrel  and 
bucket  and  tub  in  the  Convent  with  water  from  the  taps. 
And  as  we  happened  to  have  plenty  of  empty  barrels  and 
tubs,  why,  there  is  water  to  be  had  there  now,  and  will  be 
for  some  time  to  come.  Go  now,  my  children." 

The  smiling  Sisters  waved  their  hands.  The  orderly  saluted 
with  his  whip  and  drove  on  in  obedience  to  Saxham's  nod. 

"  Of  course,  the  Sisters  are  aware,"  he  said,  meeting  the 
Mother's  grave  glance,  "  that  if  it  is  quicker  to  drive,  it  is 
safer  to  walk?" 

She  nodded  with  the  gay,  sweet  smile  that  had  belonged  to 
Lady  Biddy. 

"  They  know,  of  course.  But  danger  is  in  the  day's  work. 
We  do  not  seek  it.  We  are  prepared  for  it,  and  it  comes  and 
passes.  If  one  day  it  does  not  pass  without  the  cost  of 
life,  we  are  prepared  for  that,  and  God's  Will  is  done 
always." 

"  You  are  very  brave,"  he  said.  It  was  the  first  time  in  his 
life  that  he  had  used  the  phrase  to  any  woman,  and  the  words 
came  out  almost  grudgingly. 

"  Oh  no,  not  brave,"  she  told  him ;  "  only  obedient."  Her 
veil  fluttered  in  the  mild  November  breeze  that  had  in  it  the 
heavy  fetid  taint  from  the  overcrowded  trenches  that  ringed 
Gueldersdorp,  and  the  acrid  fumes  of  the  cordite,  though  the 
air  up  here  on  the  veld  was  sweet  compared  with  the  befouled 
atmosphere  of  the  Women's  Laager  and  the  crowded  wards 
at  the  Hospital,  in  spite  of  all  that  disinfectants  could  do. 
She  went  on : 

"  And  we  are  very  grateful  to  you  for  the  lift.  Sister 
Ruperta  was  on  duty  last  night,  and  Sister  Hilda  Antony — 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  213 

the  rosy  Sister — is  not  as  well  as  she  would  have  us  believe* 
Ah •" 

With  her  grave  eyes  screened  by  her  lifted  hand,  she  had 
been  watching  the  progress  of  the  spider  westward  over  the 
dun-yellow  veld.  Now  the  long  wailing  notes  of  the  head- 
quarter bugle  sounded,  in  slow  time,  the  Assembly,  and  in 
the  same  instant,  from  the  Staff  over  the  Colonel's  hotel,  where 
the  red  lamp  signalled  danger  by  night  and  the  Red  Flag 
gave  its  warning  by  day,  the  scarlet  danger-signal  fluttered  in 
the  breeze.  Once,  twice,  again,  the  deep  bell  of  the  Catholic 
Church  tolled.  A  dozen  other  bells  echoed  the  warning, 
signifying  by  the  number  of  their  iron  tongue-strokes  the 
threatened  quarter  of  the  town. 

"  'Ware  big  gun !  "  called  the  sentries.  "  West  quarter 
'ware!" 

The  Mother-Superior  grew  pale  for  the  Women's  Laager, 
towards  which  the  little  Boer  mare  was  steadily  trotting  with 
the  laden  spider,  lay  in  the  menaced  quarter,  with  a  bare 
stretch  of  veld  between  it  and  the  Camp  of  the  Irregular 
Horse,  whose  white  tents  and  dug-out  shelters  were  pleasantly 
shaded  by  ancient  blue  gums,  picturesque  and  stately  in  spite 
of  broken  boughs  and  foliage,  torn  by  shrapnel  and  seared  by 
the  chemical  fumes  of  bursting  charges  innumerable. 

"  Will  you  not  go  down  ?  " 

She  shook  her  head  in  reply,  and  stood  with  a  waiting  face 
in  prayerful  silence,  not  stirring  save  to  make  the  Sign  of  the 
Cross.  And  as  the  long  white  fingers  fluttered  over  the  bosom 
of  the  black  habit,  the  faint  cry  that  Saxham's  quick  ear 
had  heard  before  floated  up  from  the  populous  depths  be- 
low. 

"What  Is  that?" 

Before  the  question  had  left  Saxham's  lips,  the  monster 
gun  spoke  out  in  deafening  thunder  from  the  enemy's  redoubt 
at  East  Point,  full  two  miles  away.  The  heavy  grey  smoke- 
pillar  of  the  driving-charge  towered  against  the  sunbright  dis- 
tance, and  simultaneously  with  the  crack  of  the  discharge, 
sounding  as  though  all  the  pent-up  forces  of  Hell  had  burst 
the  brazen  gates  of  Terror,  and  rushed  forth  to  annihilate  and 
destroy,  the  ninety-four  pound  projectile  passed  overhead* 
sweeping  half  the  corrugated-iron  roof  from  the  Railway  of- 
ficial's late  dwelling  with  a  fiendish  clatter  and  din  as  it  passed 
harmlessly  over  the  Women's  Laager,  and,  wrecking  a  sentry's 
shelter  on  the  western  line  of  defences,  burst  harmlessly  upon 


2i4  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

the  veld  beyond,  blotting  out  the  low  hills  behind  a  curtain  of 
acrid  green  vapour. 

"Get  under  cover,  quick!"  Saxham  had  shouted  to  his 
companion,  as  deafened  and  dazed  and  half-asphyxiated  by  the 
tremendous  concussion,  he  strove  for  mastery  with  his  mad- 
dened horse.  This  regained,  he  looked  for  the  figure  in  the 
black  habit  and  white  coif,  and  knew  a  shock  of  horror  in 
seeing  it  prone  upon  the  ground. 

"No,  no,  I  am  not  hurt!"  she  cried,  lightly  rising  as  he 
hurried  towards  her.  The  tremendous  air-concussion  had 
thrown  her  down,  and  beyond  a  scratch  upon  her  hand  and 
some  red  dust  on  the  black  garments  she  was  in  nothing  the 
worse. 

"  I  don't  know  how  I  kept  my  own  legs,"  Saxham  said, 
laughing. 

"  It  went  by  like  twenty  avalanches,"  she  agreed.  "  And 
blessed  be  our  Lord,  excepting  for  the  damage  to  the  roof,  no 
more  seems  to  have  been  done.  I  can  see  the  spider  stopping 
near  the  Women's  Laager."  She  peered  out  earnestly  over 
the  shimmering  waste  of  dusty  yellow-brown,  and  cried  out 
joyfully:  "Ah,  Sister  Hilda  Antony  and  Sister  Ruperta  are 
getting  out.  All  is  well  with  them ;  all  is  well." 

"  But  not  with  the  washing." 

Saxham  had  swung  round  his  binoculars,  and  brought  them 
to  bear  upon  the  vehicle  and  its  late  occupants.  A  grim  smile 
played  about  his  mouth  as  he  handed  her  the  glasses,  and  heard 
her  cry  of  womanly  distress  as  she  beheld  the  fruit  of  late 
labour  scattered  on  the  veld  and  the  Sisters'  agonized  activity 
displayed  in  the  gathering  up  of  sheets,  pillow-slips,  handker- 
chiefs, babies'  shirts  and  petticoats,  with  other  garments  of  a 
strictly  feminine  and  private  character.  Her  grave,  discreet 
eyes  avoided  his  as  she  handed  back  the  binoculars,  but  a 
dimple  showed  near  the  edge  of  the  white  coif. 

"  And  now,"  Saxham  said,  glancing  at  his  watch,  "  may  I 
know  in  what  I  can  be  of  service  ? "  It  had  seemed  to  him 
that  the  Mother-Superior  hesitated  to  broach  the  subject. 
Nor  had  he  been  mistaken.  The  dimple  vanished.  Her  grey 
eyes  became  troubled,  and  she  asked,  with  a  slight  catching  of 
the  breath: 

"  Yes,  there  was  something  .  .  .  Doctor,  is  it  possible  for 
a  person  to  die  of  fear?" 

He  answered  promptly: 

"  In     circumstances     like     the     present?     Certainly.     Un- 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  215 

doubtedly  possible.  I  have  seen  twenty  deaths  from  pure 
fright  since  the  bombardment  began,  and  I  expect  to  see  more 
before  the  siege  ends,  or  people  get  callous  to  the  possibilities 
of  sudden  extermination  that  are  afforded  them  a  hundred 
times  a  day.  Is  the  person  to  whom  you  refer  a  woman  or 
a  child?" 

"  A  young  girl "  she  was  beginning,  when  a  buxom 

little  figure,  black  veiled  and  habited  like  herself,  rose  up  as 
if  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth. 

"  I  vill  look.  But  I  can  see  nozing,"  she  called  to  some- 
one invisible  below.  "  It  must  be  that  you  vait  until  my  eyes 
shall  become  more  strong."  She  shaded  them,  newly  brought 
from  semi-darkness  and  blinking  in  the  hot,  white  sunlight. 
The  Mother-Superior  hurried  to  her,  saying  with  a  note  of 
anxiety  in  her  usually  calm  voice: 

"Sister — Sister  Cleophee;  is  anything  the  .matter?" 

"  Mon  Dieu!  It  is  ze  Reverend  Mozer!"  ejaculated  the 
other,  relief  and  joy  expressed  in  the  rapid  movements  of  pliant 
hands  and  expressive  eyes.  "  Nozing  is  ze  matter,  Reverend 
Mozer,  if  only  you  are  safe." 

"  Quite  safe,  and  so  are  the  Sisters.  Only  the  linen  was 
upset." 

"My  'eavens,  but  a  miraculous  escapement!"  The  supple 
hands  and  the  expressive  eyes  and  shoulders  of  Sister  Cleophee 
made  great  play.  "  Me  and  Sister  Tobias,  'ow  we  pray  when 
we  'ear  ze  great  gun,  vith  knowledge  zat  you  and  ze  Sisters 
were  upon  the  vay  to  ze  Women's  Laager.  My  faith,  it  vas 
terrible!  Me,  if  I  'ad  not  make  to  ascend  and  learn  how  it 
go  vid  you,  la  petite  vould  'ave  come  running  up  to  make  dis- 
covery for  herself.  She  behave  like  a  little  crrazy,  a  little 
mad  sing.  I  forget  your  vord  for  she  zat  have  lost  'er  vits. 
Sister  Tobias  and  me,  we  'av  to  'old  'er."  The  fine,  expres- 
sive eyes  went,  past  the  Mother-Superior,  and  lighted  with  evi- 
dent relief  on  Saxham.  "Ah,  Monsieur  le  Docteur,  it  is 
incrredible  vat  zat  poor  child  she  suffer.  Madame  la  Mere 
'ave  told  you " 

"  Madame  was  about  to  tell  me,  my  Sister,"  Saxham  said, 
in  his  smooth,  fluent  French,  "  when  you  appeared  upon  the 
scene." 

Sister  Cleophee  launched,  unwitting  of  the  Mother-Su- 
perior's gesture  of  vexation,  into  voluble  explanations  in  that 
native  language  which  M.  le  Docteur  spoke  so  well. 

Mademoiselle  Mildare,  the  ward  of  Madame  the  Mother- 


216  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

Superior,  was  no  coward.  But  no,  the  child  had  courage  in 
plenty — it  was  the  suspense  that  devoured  her  in  the  absence 
of  the  Mother,  to  whom  Mademoiselle  was  most  tenderly  at- 
tached, that  reduced  her  to  a  state  of  the  most  pitiable.  The 
Sisters  left  at  home  each  day  would  talk  of  the  rain  and  the 
fine  weather — anything  to  distract  the  mind  that  presented  it- 
self to  them — but  now,  nothing  was  of  any  use.  When  the 
Reverend  Mother  came  back  at  nightfall,  behold  a  transforma- 
tion. Mademoiselle  would  laugh  and  sing  and  chatter.  Her 
eyes  would  shine  like  stars,  she  would  be  happy,  said  Sister 
Cleophee,  with  dramatic  emphasis  and  gesture,  as  a  soul  in 
Paradise.  Next  day,  taking  her  guardian  from  her  side, 
would  bring  the  terrors  back,  find  redoubled  the  nervous 
sufferings  of  Mademoiselle,  to-day  reaching  such  a  height  that 
Sister  Cleophee  felt  convinced  that  something  must  be  done. 

"As,  my  Sister,  if  I  could  do  anything!"  the  Mother- 
Superior  said,  with  the  velvet  Southern  Irish  inflection  in  the 
breathing  aspirate  and  the  soft  melodious  cadence  that  made 
her  pure,  cultivated  utterance  so  exquisite.  The  voice  broke 
and  faltered,  and  a  spasm  of  mother-anguish  wrung  the  firm 
mouth,  and  as  a  slow  tear  dimmed  each  of  her  underlids  and 
splashed  on  the  white  coif  she  put  out  her  hand  blindly,  and 
the  sympathetic  little  Frenchwoman  took  it  in  both  her  own. 

"  Reverend  Mozer,  you  can  do  zis.  You  can  bring  Mon- 
sieur le  Docteur  to  see  Lynette.  You  can  'ave  his  advice  upon 
'er  case,  and  you  can " 

Another  fusilade  of  rifle-fire,  sweeping  from  the  west  over 
Gueldersdorp,  brought  a  repetition  of  the  faint  moaning  cry 
from  below.  Saxham  consulted  the  Reverend  Mother  with 
a  look.  She  bent  her  head  in  silent  assent.  He  hitched  the 
horse's  bridle  to  what,  had  been  the  gatepost  of  the  Railway 
official's  front-garden,  as  she  signed  to  him  to  descend  the 
ladder  leading  to  the  Sisters'  underground  abode.  And  he 
went  down  to  meet  his  Fate  there. 


XXVIII 

THE  temporary  Convent  was  a  roomy  trench  dug  out  of  the 
red  gravelly  sand,  lined  with  the  inevitable  sheets  of  corrugated 
iron,  and  roofed  with  the  same  material,  supported  by  a  solid 
frame  of  steel  rails.  Wide  chinks  between  the  metal  sheets 
gave  admission  to  light  and  air,  and  earthen  drainpipes  made 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  217 

ventilators  in  the  walls.  But  the  light  penetrated  like  spears 
of  burning  flame,  and  the  air  was  stifling  hot.  The  paraffin 
stove  that  heated  irons  for  Sister  Tobias  smelled  clamorously, 
and  the  droning  of  myriads  of  flies,  not  the  least  of  the  seven 
plagues  of  Gueldersdorp,  kept  up  a  persistent  bass  to  the  shrill 
singing  of  the  little  tin  kettle.  Later,  when  the  April  rains 
began,  and  the  tarpaulins  were  pulled  over  the  sand-bagged 
roof,  tin  lamps  burning  more  paraffin  did  battle  with  Cim- 
merian darkness. 

Saxham's  keen,  observant  glance  took  in  the  marvellous 
cleanliness  and  neatness  of  the  place,  divided  into  living-room 
and  dormitory  by  a  heavy  green  baize  curtain,  that  at  the 
Convent  had  shut  off  the  noise  of  the  great  classroom  from  the 
rest  of  the  house.  The  curtain  was  drawn,  hiding  the  little 
iron  cots  brought  from  Sisters'  cells,  ascetic  couches  whose 
narrow  wire  mattresses  must  afford  scant  room  for  repose  to 
double  sleepers  now,  where  all  were  crowded  and  conventual 
rules  must  be  in  abeyance.  The  outer  place  held  a  deal  table, 
the  oil  cooking-stove;  some  household  utensils  shining  with 
cleanliness  were  ranged  upon  a  shelf,  and  several  pictures 
hung  upon  the  walls.  Upon  a  bracket  the  silver  crucifix  from 
the  altar  of  the  Convent  chapel  gleamed  against  the  back- 
ground of  a  snowy,  lace-bordered  linen  cloth.  There  were 
orderly  piles  of  cleaned  and  mended  clothes,  military  and 
civilian,  the  garments  of  sick  and  wounded  male  patients,  who 
would  leave  the  Hospital  without  a  thought  of  the  unselfish 
women  who  had  foregone  sleep  to  patch  jackets  and  sew  on 
missing  buttons.  There  were  haversacks  of  coarse  canvas  for 
the  Volunteers,  finished  and  partly  made,  with  ammunition- 
pouches  and  bandoliers.  And  Sister  Tobias  stood!  ironing 
at  the  deal  table,  partly  screened  by  a  line  of  drying  linen, 
while  Sister  Mary- Joseph  turned  the  mangle,  and  the  little 
brisk  novice,  her  round  cheeks  no  longer  rosy,  folded  with 
patient  hands.  Saxham's  keen  quick  glance  took  in  the  place 
and  three  of  its  occupants,  and  rested  on  one  other  face  there. 

Its  wild  white-rose  fairness  had  dulled  into  the  pallor  of 
old  ivory.  There  were  deep,  bluish  shadows  about  the  eyes 
and  round  the  mouth,  and  the  hollow  at  the  base  of  the  throat 
where  the  pulse  throbbing  and  fluttered  visibly,  had  grown  deep. 
Her  red-brown  hair  had  lost  its  burnished  beauty.  It  had 
become  dull  like  her  skin,  and  her  garments  hung  loosely  upon 
the  form  whose  soft  roundnesses  had  fallen  away.  But  her 
eyes  had  changed  most.  Their  golden-hazel  irises  had  faded 


218  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

to  pale  bronze,  the  full,  fair  eyelids  had  shrunk,  the  pupils 
were  distended  to  twice  their  natural  size.  She  sat  upon  a 
stool  in  a  corner,  a  slight  girlish  figure  in  a  holland  skirt  and 
white  cambric  blouse-bodice,  her  slender  waist  girdled  with  a 
belt  of  brown  leather,  the  colour  of  her  little  shoes.  Huddled 
up  against  the  corrugated-iron  wainscot  of  the  rough  earth 
wall,  the  obsession  of  fear  that  dilated  her  eyes  and  parched 
her  lips  shook  her  in  recurrent  gusts  of  trembling,  whenever 
the  guns  of  the  Gueldersdorp  batteries  spoke  in  thunder,  when- 
ever the  Boer  artillery  bellowed  Death  from  the  heights  above. 
For  since  the  great  gun  had  spoken  from  East  Point  Kopje, 
Death's  red  sickle  had  not  ceased  to  ply  its  task. 

Some  sewing,  one  of  the  coarse  canvas  haversacks  made  by 
the  nuns  for  Gueldersdorp 's  enrolled  defenders,  lay  at  the 
girl's  feet.  Her  right  hand,  horrible  to  see  in  its  incessant, 
mechanical  activity,  made  continually  the  motion  of  sewing. 
Her  eyes  stared  blankly,  unwinkingly  at  the  opposite  wall, 
and  the  gusts  of  trembling  went  over  her  without  cessation. 
At  a  more  deafening  crash  than  ordinary,  an  irrepressible  scream 
would  break  from  her,  and  her  hand  would  snatch  at  an  in- 
visible garment  as  though  she  plucked  back  its  imaginary 
wearer  from  peril  by  main  force. 

"  She  sees  nobody.  She  hears  nozing  when  we  speak — she 
vould  feel  nozing,  if  you  should  pinch  or  shake  her.  Was  I 
not  right,  Reverend  Mozer,  to  say  it  is  time  zat  somesing 
should  be  done?  " 

The  shrill  whisper  came  from  Sister  Cleophee.  The 
Mother-Superior  made  a  sign  in  assent.  Beyond  words,  her 
heart  was  crying.  Oh,  misery  and  joy  in  one  mingled  draught 
to  have  won  such  love  as  this  from  Richard's  child!  But 
her  face  was  impassive  and  stern,  and  her  eyes,  looking  over 
Saxham's  great  shoulder  as  he  stood  silently  watching  at  the 
bottom  of  the  ladder  stairway,  imposed  silence  on  the  busy, 
observant,  tactful  Sisters,  who  continued  their  labours  without 
a  break,  as  the  sewing  hand  went,  diligently  to  and  fro,  and 
the  recurrent  convulsive  shudders  shook  the  girl's  slight  frame, 
and  the  irrepressible  cry  of  anguish  was  wrung  from  her  at 
each  ear-splitting  shellburst.  And  yet,  with  all  her  agony  of 
love  intensifying  her  gaze,  the  Mother  did  not  see  as  much  as 
Saxham,  who  took  in  every  detail  and  symptom  with  skilled, 
consummate  ease,  realizing  the  desperate  effort  that  strove  for 
self-command,  noting  the  exhaustion  of  suspense  in  the  dropped 
lines  of  the  half-open,  colourless  mouth,  the  incipient  mental 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  219 

breakdown  in  the  vacant  stare  of  the  dilated  eyes,  the  me- 
chanical action  of  the  stitching  needle-hand,  the  convulsive 
shudder  that  rippled  through  the  slight  figure  at  each  boom, 
or  crash,  or  fusilade  of  rifle-fire  that  drifted  over  the  shrapnel- 
torn  veld  and  through  the  battered  town.  He  threw  a  swift 
whisper  over  his  shoulder  presently,  that  only  reached  the  ear 
of  the  Mother-Superior,  standing  behind  him,  her  tall  shape 
concealed  from  the  sufferer's  sight  by  his  great  form. 

"  How  long  has  this  been  going  on?" 

She  whispered  back :  "  I  am  told  ever  since  the  bombard- 
ment began.  Every  day,  and  at.  night  too,  should  duty  detain 
me  at  one  or  another  of  the  Hospitals." 

He  added  in  the  same  low  tone : 

"  She  has  a  morbid  terror  of  death  under  ordinary  circum- 
stances? " 

The  Mother-Superior  murmured,  a  hand  upon  the  ache  in 
her  bosom: 

"  Not  of  death  for  herself.     For — another." 

His  purely  scientific  attitude  must,  have  already  abandoned 
him  when  he  knew  gladness  that  Self  was  not  the  dominant 
note  in  this  dumb  threnody  of  fear.  But  he  wore  the  profes- 
sional mask  of  the  physician  as  he  ordered: 

"  Let  one  of  the  Sisters  speak  to  her." 

The  Mother-Superior  glanced  at  the  nun  who  was  ironing, 
and  then  at  the  figure  on  the  stool.  The  Sister  was  about 
to  obey  when  the  Maxim-Nordenfelt  on  the  southern  heights 
rattled.  There  was  a  hissing  rush  overhead,  and  as  a  series 
of  sharp,  splitting  cracks  told  that  a  group  of  the  shining  little 
copper-banded  shells  had  burst,  and  that  their  splinters  were 
busily  hunting  far  and  wide  for  somebody  to  kill,  the  stitch- 
ing hand  dropped  by  the  girl's  side.  A  new  wave  of  shudder- 
ing went  over  the  desolate  young  figure,  pitiable  and  horrible 
jto  see.  Dull  drops  of  sweat  broke  out  upon  her  temples  in  the 
shadow  of  her  red-brown  hair. 

"  How  are  you  getting  on  with  your  work,  dearie?" 

Sister  Tobias  had  spoken  to  her  gently.  She  moved  her 
head  and  her  fixed  eyes  in  a  blind  way,  and  the  stitching  hand 
resumed  its  mechanical  task,  but  she  gave  no  answer,  except 
with  the  shudderings  that  shook  her,  as  a  lily  is  shaken  in  an 
autumn  blast. 

Then  Saxham  stepped  backwards  noiselessly,  climbed  the 
steep  ladder  stairway,  and  stood  waiting  for  the  Mother- 
Superior  in  the  blazing  yellow  sunshine,  beside  the  ijost  to 


220  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

which  his  horse  was  hitched.  The  Mother  followed  instantly. 
He  was  making  some  pencil  memoranda  in  a  shabby  note- 
book, and  kept  his  eyes  upon  his  writing,  and  made  a  mere 
mask  of  his  square,  pale  face  as  he  began: 

"  It — the  case  presents  a  very  interesting  development.  The 
subject  has  at  one  time  or  other — probably  the  critical  period 
of  girlhood — sustained  a  severe  physical  and  mental  shock?" 

The  great  grey  eyes  swam  in  sudden  tears  that  were  not  to 
be  repressed,  as  the  Mother-Superior  remembered  the  finding 
of  that  lost  lamb  on  the  veld  seven  years  before.  She  bowed 
her  head  in  silent  assent. 

"You  would  wish  candour,"  Saxham  said,  looking  away 
from  her  emotion.  "  And  I  should  tell  you  that  this  is 
grave." 

"  I  know  it,"  her  desperate  eyes  said  more  plainly  than 
her  scarcely  moving  lips.  "  But  so  many  others  are  suffering 
in  the  same  way,  and  there  is  nothing  that  can  be  done  for  any 
of  them." 

He  answered  with  emphasis  that  struck  her  cold.  "  Some 
measures  must  be  taken  in  the  case,  and  without  delay.  This 
state  of  things  must  not  go  on."  He  saw  that  the  Mother- 
Superior  caught  her  breath  and  wrung  her  hands  together 
in  the  loose,  concealing  sleeves  as  she  said,  with  a  breath  of 
anguish : 

"  If  she  only  had  more  self-control." 

"  She  has  self-control."  He  echoed  the  word  impatiently. 
"  She  is  using  every  ounce  she  has  for  all  she  is  worth.  She 
has  used  it  too  long  and  too  persistently." 

"  I  will  say  then,  if  she  only  had  more  faith !  " 

"I  know  nothing  of  faith,"  Saxham  said  curtly:  "I  deal 
in  common  sense." 

She  could  have  asked  if  it  were  commonly  sensible  for  a 
creature  made  by  God,  and  existing  but  by  His  will,  to  live 
without  Him?  But  she  put  the  temptation  past  her.  No 
cordial  flame  of  mutual  esteem  and  liking  ever  sprang  up  be- 
tween these  two,  often  brought  together  in  their  mutual  work 
of  help  and  healing.  She  recognized  Saxham's  power,  she  ad- 
mitted his  skill.  But,  as  his  practised  eye  had  diagnosed  in  the 
beloved  of  her  heart  the  signs  of  physical  and  mental  crisis,  so 
her  clear  gaze  deciphered  in  his  face  the  story  written  by  those 
unbridled  years  of  vice  and  dissipation,  and  knew  him  dis- 
eased in  soul.  She  may  have  been  fully  acquainted  with  all 
Gueldersdorp  had  learned  of  hiir^  going  here,  there,  and  every- 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  221 

where,  as  was  her  wont,  in  obedience  to  her  Spouse's  call. 
But  if  so,  she  never  betrayed  Saxham.  There  was  no  resent- 
ment, only  delicate  irony  in  the  curve  of  her  finely-modelled 
lips  as  she  queried : 

"Am  I  so  deficient  in  the  quality  of  common  sense?" 

"  Madam,"  he  said,  "  you  have  manifested  it  in  each  of  the 
many  instances  where  I  have  been  brought  in  contact  with 
you.  But  in  your  solicitude  for  this  young  girl  you  have 
shown,  for  the  first  time  in  my  experience  of  you,  some  lack 
of  good  judgment,  and  have  inflicted,  and  do  inflict,  severe 
suffering  on  her." 

Her  eyes  flashed  grey  fire  under  her  stern  brows  as  she  de- 
manded : 

"How,  pray?" 

"  It  is  out.  of  the  question,  I  suppose,"  Saxham  said  coldly, 
"  that  you  should  slacken  in  your  ministrations  among  the 
sick  and  wounded,  and  keep  out  of  daily  and  hourly  danger — 
for  her  sake  ?  " 

"  Impossible,"  her  voice  answered,  and  her  heart  added  un- 
heard :  "  Impossible,  unless  I  should  be  false  to  my  Heavenly 
Bridegroom  out  of  love  for  the  child  He  gave." 

"  Then,"  said  Saxham  bluntly,  "  unless  these  recurrent 
nerve-storms  are  to  culminate  in  cerebral  lesion  and  mental 
and  physical  collapse — a  result  more  easy  to  avert  than  to 
deal  with — take  the  girl  about  with  you." 

"  But •"  the  Mother  uttered  in  irrepressible  dismay. 

"  I — we  go  everywhere!" 

It  was  most  true.  He  had  a  vision,  as  she  said  it,  of  the 
black-robed,  white-coifed,  cheerful  Sisters  passing  in  couples 
through  the  shrapnel-littered  streets,  between  houses  of  gap- 
ing walls,  and  shattered  roofs,  and  glassless  windows,  cheer- 
ful, serene,  helpful,  bringing  comfort  to  the  dying,  and  assist- 
ance to  the  sick,  oblivious  of  whistling  bullets  and  bursting 
shells.  And  the  most  arduous  duties,  the  most  repulsive  tasks, 
the  most  danger-fraught  errands,  were  hers,  always  by  right, 
and  claim,  and  choice.  What  a  woman  it  was!  A  very 
Judith  in  Israel.  He  knew  that  Judith  did  not  like  him,  but 
unconcealed  admiration  was  in  his  blue  eyes  as  he  looiced  at 
her. 

"  I  know  it.     Let  her  go  everywhere.     It  is  the  sole  chance, 

and — you  spoke  of  faith  just  now.  ...  If  you  have  it  for 

yourself   and   the   religious   women   of  your  Order,   who   go 

about  doing  good  in  confidence  of  the  protection — I  do  not 


222  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

speak  in  mockery — of  an  Almighty  Hand,  why  can't  you  have 
it  for  her?" 

She  had  never  seemed  so  noble  in  his  eyes  as  when  she 
took  that  implied  rebuke  of  his,  with  meek  bending  of  her 
proud  head,  and  candid  self-condemnation  in  the  eyes  that 
were  lowered  and  then  raised  to  his,  and  beautiful  humility 
in  her  speech:  . 

"Sir,  your  reproach  is  just;  it  is  I  who  have  been  lacking 
in  faith.  And — it  shall  be  as  you  advise." 

The  distant  bugle  blared  out  its  warning.  The  bell  tolled 
twice,  stopped,  and  tolled  four;  the  smaller  bells  echoed.  The 
voices  of  the  sentries  came  to  their  ears,  loudly  at  first,  then 
more  distant,  then  reduced  to  the  merest  spider-thread  of 
sound: 

'  'Ware  big  gun !     South  quarter  'ware !  " 

"  I  must  go  to  her,"  the  Mother-Superior  said,  and  passed 
him  swiftly  and  went  down  the  ladder.  Saxham  followed. 
The  white  figure  on  the  stool  had  not  stirred  apparently.  Its 
blank  eyes  still  stared  at  the  wall,  and  the  mechanical  hand 
moved,  sewing  at  nothing,  as  diligently  as  ever. 

"Lynette!" 

The  fixed,  blindly-staring  eyes  came  to  life.  Colour 
throbbed  back  into  the  wan  ivory  cheeks.  The  mouth  lost  its 
vacant  droop.  She  rose  up  from  the  stool  with  a  joyful  cry, 
and,  stumbling  in  her  haste,  ran  into  the  outstretched  arms. 
As  they  wrapped  about  her,  clinging  to  her  sole  earthly  friend 
and  guardian  as  though  she  could  never  let  go,  came  the  crash 
of  the  driving-charge,  the  yelling  Brocken-hunt  of  the  passage 
of  the  huge  projectile,  the  ear-splitting  din  of  the  shellburst. 
She  lifted  up  a  radiant  face  of  laughing  defiance,  and  then 
choked  and  quivered  and  burst  out  crying,  leaning  her  panting 
young  bosom  against  the  black  habit,  and  weeping  as  though 
her  whole  being  must  dissolve,  Undine-like,  in  tears. 

Ah,  the  lovely  feminine  woman  who  weeps  and  clings!  She 
will  never  lose  her  dominion  over  the  sons  of  men.  The  ap- 
pealing glances  of  her  beautiful  wet  eyes  melt,  the  stoniest 
male  hearts,  the  soft  tendril-like  wreathing  of  her  arms  about 
the  pillar  of  salt  upon  the  Plain  would  have  had  power  to 
change  it  back  into  a  breathing  human  being  once  more,  if 
Lot  had  looked  back,  instead  of  his  helpmeet.  Her  sterner 
sisters  may  feel  as  keenly,  love  as  tenderly,  sorrow  even  more 
bitterly  than  she.  Who  will  believe  it  among  the  sons  of 
dead  old  Adam,  who  first  felt  the  heaving  bosom. pant  against 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  223 

his  own,  and  saw  the  first  bright  tear-showers  fall — forerunners 
of  what  oceans  of  world  sorrow  to  be  shed  hereafter,  when  the 
Angel  of  the  flaming  sword  drove  the  peccant  pair  from 
Paradise.  Ah,  the  fair,  weak  woman  who  weeps  and  clings! 

And  Owen  Saxham,  watching  Lynette  from  the  ladder- 
ot,  and  the  Mother-Superior,  clasping  her  and  murmuring 
Ibft  comfort  into  the  delicate,  fragile  ear  under  the  heaped 
'waves  of  red-brown  hair,  shared  the  same  thought. 

How  this  trembling,  vibrating,  emotional  creature  will 
love  one  day,  when  the  man  arrives  to  whom  imperious  Nature 
shall  bid  her  render  up  her  all ! 

In  whom,  prayed  the  unselfish  mother-heart,  willing  to  be 
bereft  of  even  the  Heaven-sent  consolation  for  the  sake  of  the 
beloved,  in  whom  may  she  find  not  only  the  earthly  matefellow 
but  the  kindred  soul.  For,  all-pitying  Mother  of  Mercy, 
should  she  too,  be  doomed  for  wreck  upon  a  wavering,  un- 
stable, headlong  Richard,  what  will  happen  then? 

Looking  at  the  pair,  Saxham  thought  of  Ruth  and  Naomi. 
Lynette's  tears  had  been  dried  quickly,  like  all  joy-drops  that 
the  eyes  shed.  She  was  talking  low  and  earnestly,  pleading 
her  cause  with  clinging  hands  and  wistful  looks  and  coaxing 
tones  that  were  broken  sometimes  by  a  sob  and  sometimes  by 
a  little  peal  of  girlish  laughter. 

"  Mother,  I  am  not  made  of  sugar  to  be  melted  in  the  sun, 
or  Dresden  china  to  be  broken.  I  am  strong  enough  to  take 
my  share  of  the  work;  I  am  brave  enough  to  bear  a'nything — 
anything,"  she  urged,  "  if  only  I  may  be  with  you.  But  to  sit 
cooped  up  here  day  after  day,  safe  and  sheltered,  sewing 
powder-bags  or  giving  Katie  French  lessons,  or  helping  Sister 
Tobias,  and  listening  to  the  guns  " — the  blood  fled  from  her 
cheeks  and  the  great,  pupils  of  her  eyes  dilated  until  they 
looked  all  black  in  her  face  of  whiteness — "  the  dreadful  guns, 
and  wondering  where  you  are  when  the  shells  are  bursting  " — 
her  voice  rose  in  anguish — "I  can't  bear  it!  Mother,  do  you 
hear?"  She  threw  her  beautiful  head  back  entreatingly,  and 
the  pulses  in  her  white  throat  throbbed  under  Saxham's  eyes, 
and  her  slight  hands  were  desperate  in  their  clutch  upon  the 
arms  that  held  her.  "  I  want  my  share  of  the  risk,  whatever 
it  is.  I  will  have  it.  It  is  my  right.  I  have  tried  to  be  good 
and  patient,  but  I  can't,  I  can't,  I  can't  stand  this  any  more ! " 

Her  voice  broke  upon  a  sob,  and  Saxham  said  from  the  door- 
way that  was  filled  by  his  great  shoulders  from  post  to  post: 

"  You  will  not  have  to  stand  it  any  more.     The  Reverend 


224  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

Mother  has  reconsidered  her  decision.     She  will  take  you  to 
the  Hospital  and  elsewhere  from  to-day." 

The  man's  curt  manner  and  authoritative  tone  brought 
Lynette  for  the  first  time  to  knowledge  of  his  presence.  Her 
glance  went  to  him,  and  joy  was  mingled  with  surprise  in  the 
face  she  turned  towards  the  Mother-Superior. 

"Really,  Mother?" 

The  Mother-Superior,  though  her  own  still  face  had  flushed 
with  quick  irrepressible  resentment  at  Saxham's  tone,  said 
cheerfully: 

"  It  is  true,  my  child.  Dr.  Saxham  thinks  it  will  be  best 
for  you.  Dr.  Saxham,  this  is  my  ward,  Miss  Mildare." 

Saxham  made  his  little  brusque  bow.  Lynette,  bending  her 
lovely  head,  gave  a  grateful  glance  at  the  khaki-clad  figure 
with  the  great  hulking  shoulders  standing  under  the  patch  of 
hot  blue  sky  that  the  top  of  the  ladder  vanished  in,  and  a 
strange  shock  and  thrill  went  through  the  man's  whole  frame. 
His  odd,  gentian-coloured  eyes  under  the  heavy  thunder-cloud 
of  black  eyebrows  lightened  so  suddenly  in  reply  that  the  girl 
felt  repelled  and  half-frightened.  She  was  conscious  of  a 
curious  oppression.  As  for  Saxham,  a  delicate,  stinging  fire 
ran  newly  in  his  veins.  Something  stirred  in  the  secret  depths 
of  him,  and  came  to  life  with  an  awakening  thrill  exquisitely 
poignant  and  sweet.  For  this  slight,  unsophisticated,  Convent- 
bred  creature,  pure  as  a  lily,  reared  in  innocence  among  the 
blameless,  was  rich  as  her  frail,  lovely  mother  had  been  before 
her  in  the  mysterious  allure  of  sex.  Beautiful  Lady  Bridget- 
Mary  at  the  zenith  of  her  stately  beauty  had  never  possessed 
one-tenth  of  the  seductive  charm  that  emanated  from  this  young 
girl.  Thoughts  of  the  stored-up  golden  honey  seen  gleaming 
through  the  translucent  waxen  cells  of  the  virgin  comb  made 
the  senses  reel  as  you  looked  at  her,  if  you  were  man  born  of 
woman,  with  your  passions  alive  and  keen-edged  in  you,  and 
your  blood  had  not  lost  the  lilt  of  the  song  that  it  has  sung 
in  healthy  veins  of  sons  of  Adam  since  the  Woman  was  made 
for  and  given  to  the  Man.  For  Artemis  may  invite,  if  uncon- 
sciously, the  hot  pursuit  of  the  hunter;  the  shy,  close-folded 
nymph  among  the  sedges  may  awaken  the  primal  desire  of 
Pan  among  the  reeds.  .  .  .  Saxham,  even  in  the  years  of  his 
degradation,  had  scarcely  sunk  to  the  level  of  the  crook-limbed, 
hairy-thighed,  hoofed  satyr.  But  he  had  built  his  nest  with 
the  birds  of  night,  and  slaked  his  thirst  at  impure  sources,  and 
only  now  did  he  realize  how  his  mad  dream  of  vengeance  upon 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  225 

the  Power  that  had  cast  him  down  and  wrecked  his  future  was 
to  recoil  upon  himself.  "  I  have  done  with  Love,"  he  had  said, 
"  and  with  Hope,  and  with  Life  as  it  is  known  of  the  honour- 
able and  the  upright  and  the  cleanly  among  men  for  ever." 

And  now  ...  his  thoughts  were  tipped  with  fire  as  he 
drank  in  the  suddenly-awakened,  vivid,  delicate  beauty  of 
Lynette  Mildare.  Now  he  realized  the  depths  of  his  own 
mad  folly.  Oh,  to  have  had  the  right  to  hope  again,  to  love 
again,  to  live  again,  and  be  grateful  to  David,  who  had  be- 
trayed him,  and  Mildred,  who  had  deserted  him — to  this  end! 
Oh,  never  to  have  lost  the  honourable  claim  to  woo  such  love- 
liness as  this  and  win  such  purit)',  and  wear  both  as  a  talis- 
man upon  his  heart  for  ever!  He  drew  breath  heavily  as  he 
looked  at  the  girl,  transformed  and  glowing  under  the  touch 
she  loved,  shining  from  within  like  some  frail,  transparent 
alabaster  lamp  with  the  light  that  he  had  helped  to  rekindle. 
And  as  his  great  chest  expanded  with  deep  draughts  of  the 
subtle,  intoxicating  atmosphere  of  her,  and  the  blood  hummed 
through  his  veins  to  that  new  measure,  the  last  link  of  his  old 
fetters  fell  clanking  to  the  ground.  And  then,  with  a  sting 
of  intolerable  remorse,  came  the  memory  of  his  shameful  five 
years'  Odyssey  spent  as  a  hog  among  other  hogs  of  the  human 
kind.  It  had  not  been  an  overthrow.  It  had  been  a  sur- 
render of  all  that  was  good  and  strong  in  him  to  all  in  him 
that  was  despicable  and  weak  and  vile.  And  his  soul  shud- 
dered, and  his  heart  contracted  in  the  sickening  clutch  of 
shame. 

XXIX 

HE  awakened  from  that  lost  moment  of  enthralment  to  the 
pang  and  the  shock  of  self-discovery,  and  to  the  knowledge 
that  somebody  was  hailing  him  by  name  from  the  top  of  the 
ladder. 

"  Saxham!  Doctor!  Are  you  below  there?" 
It  was  the  gay,  fresh  voice  of  Beauvayse,  halted  with  a 
handful  of  Irregulars,  bandoliered,  carrying  their  rifles  and 
the  day's  provisions,  wearing  their  bayonets  on  their  hips,  and 
sitting  their  wiry  little  horses  with  the  ease  of  old  troopers 
in  the  lee  of  the  piled-up  mound  of  sandbags  that  roofed  the 
underground  convent.  Five  men  and  a  Corporal  of  the  Town 
Guard,  similarly  burdened  and  accoutred — we  know  the  pale 
Cockney  eyes  and  the  thin  face  of  the  Corporal,  whose  freckles 


226  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

have  long  ago  vanished  in  a  uniform  gingerbread  hue — had 
also  taken  momentary  shelter  from  one  of  the  intermittent 
blizzards  of  Mauser  bullets  that  drifted  through  Gueldersdorp. 

One  Irregular  was  sitting  on  an  earth-filled  packing-case, 
swearing  softly,  nursing  a  disabled  right  arm,  and  looking  at 
the  corded  network  of  hairy,  sunburned  muscles  that  were  deli- 
cately outlined  in  the  bright  red  stream  that  trickled  from  be- 
neath the  rolled-up  shirt-sleeve  of  raspy  "  greyback." 

"  We  saw  your  hairy  tied  up  outside,  Doctor,  and  '  sensed  ' 
your  whereabouts,  as  McFadyen  says.  Can  the  ladies  spare 
you  for  a  moment?  Sorry  to  be  a  nuisance,  but  one  of  my 
fellows  has  got  winged  on  our  way  to  relieve  the  garrison  at 
Maxim  Outpost,  South,  and  though  he  swears  he  is  as  fit  as  a 
fiddle,  I  don't  believe  he  ought  to  come  on." 

"I'm  all  right,  Sir,  'pon  me  Sam  I  am!"  protested  the  dis- 
mounted trooper.  "  It's  a  bit  stiff,  but  the  bleedin'  '11  take 
that  off.  I  shan't  shoot  a  tikkie  the  worse  for  it.  Lay  any- 
body 'ere  a  caulker  I  don't." 

Nobody  took  up  the  bet,  fortunately  for  the  sportsman,  as 
surgical  examination  proved  that  the  bullet  had  gone  sheer 
through  the  fleshy  part  of  the  upper  arm,  breaking  the  bone, 
just  missing  the  artery,  and  leaving  a  clean  hole. 

"You'll  have  to  go  to  Hospital,  my  man,"  pronounced 
Saxham. 

The  face  of  the  wounded  Irregular  lengthened  in  disgust. 
"My  crimson  luck!  And  I'd  made  up  my  mind  to  pick  off 
a  brace  o'  them  blasted  Dutch  wart  'ogs  over  that,  there  bad 
job  of  pore  Bob  Ellis." 

He  blinked  violently,  and  gulped  down  something  that  rose 
in  his  brown,  muscular  throat  as  the  voice  of  a  comrade,  mid- 
dle-aged like  himself,  coffee-baked  as  a  Colonial,  and  also 
speaking  with  the  accents  of  the  English  barrack-room,  took 
up  the  tale. 

"  Bob  Ellis  was  'is  pal,  Sir,  and  mine,  too.  We  was  in 
the  same  battery  of  'Orse  Artillery  at  Ali  Musjid,  an'  we  went 
up  along  of  Lord  Kitchener  to  Khartoum.  An'  they  shot  'im 
yesterday.  Through  the  'ead,  clean,  an'  'e  never  spoke  an- 
other word." 

"  Through  the  loop-'ole  o'  the  parapet,  it  was,"  went  on 
the  wounded  man.  "  Bein'  in  the  advance  trench,  we've  got 
on  neighbourly  terms  like,  with  the  Dutchies,  and  Tom  Kelly, 
wot  'as  just  bin  speakin',  'card  Bob  Ellis  promisin'  this  bloke 
as  'ow  if  'e'd  on'y  'urry  up  an'  git  killed  soon  enough,  Bob 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  227 

would  'ave  'is  farm  and  'Is  frow  when  'e  come  marchm'  along- 
to  Pretoria.  'Oppin'  mad  the  Dopper  was  at  that,  an'  the 
names  'e  called  pore  Bob  was  something  disgraceful.  An* 
when  'e  got  'im  through  the  loop-'ole  me  an'  Kelly  made  our 
minds  up  to  show  a  bit  o'  fancy  shootin'  and  lay  'im  out  in 
turn.  That's  'ow  it  was,  Sir.  An'  now " — the  voice  grew 
shaky — "they've  corked  me.  Corked  me,  by  God! — an' 
there's  not  a  bloke  among  the  lot  of  us  but  me  can  play  the 
concertina."  With  his  undamaged  arm  he  swung  round  his 
haversack,  bulging  at  the  top  with  a  cheap,  bone-keyed,  rose- 
wood-veneered, gaudy-paper-sided  instrument  of  German  make, 
and  hung  his  head  over  it  in  silence. 

"  But  what  on  earth  has  the  concertina  got  to  do  with  it?'* 
Saxham  was  frankly  puzzled,  and  Beauvayse,  with  all  his  pro- 
fessional knowledge  of  "  Tommy,"  was  for  once  nonplussed. 

"  You'd  better  explain  to  the  Doctor,  Corporal  Leash.  I'm 
out  of  the  running  when  it  comes  to  killing  men  with  con- 
certinas. And — you  don't  play  as  badly  as  all  that,  da 
you?" 

"  On  the  contrywise,  Sir,"  explained  the  comrade  Kelly, 
"  plays  uncommon  well,  he  does — all  the  tunes  of  the  latest 
music-'alls  and  patriotic  songs." 

"  An'  them  blasted  Doppers  are  uncommon  fond  o'  music, 
d'ye  see,  Sir,"  explained  the  wounded  trooper.  "They  can't 
keep  their  ugly  'eads  down  behind  the  sandbags  when  they 
hears  it.  Up  they  pops  'em  over  the  edge  and  then — you 
take  care  they  don't  pop  down  no  more." 

The  Captain's  gay  young  laughter  was  infectious;  white 
teeth  showed,  or  teeth  that  were  not  white,  in  the  tanned  faces 
of  Irregulars  and  Town  Guardsmen.  Even  the  mourning 
comrades  grinned,  and  Saxham  smiled  grimly  as  Beauvayse 
cried : 

"  By  George,  a  more  original  method  of  reprisal  I  never 
came  across!  But  it's  clear  if  you  can't  shoot  with  that  left 
arm  of  yours  you  can't  play  the  concertina.  Wish  I  could 
knock  a  tune  out  of  the  thing,  Leash,  for  your  sake — enough 
to  make  a  Boer  put  his  head  up.  But  I'm  a  duffer  at  musical 
instruments — always  was.  What  do  you  say,  my  man  ?  " 

"  Beg  pardon,  Sir."  The  Corporal  with  the  Town  Guards- 
men saluted,  making  the  most  of  his  five  feet  two  inches.  "  I 
can  pl'y  the  squiffer — I  mean  the  concertina,  Sir — a  fair  treat 
for  a  hammatore.  And  if  I  might  be  let  to  tyke  this  man's 
plyce  at  Maxim  Outpost  South,  Sir,  I  could  'elp  serve  the 


228  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

gun,  too,  Sir — we've  bin'  attendin'  Artillery  Drill  in  spare 
hours." 

"  I  shouldn't  think  you  had  any  spare  hours  to  spare." 
Beauvayse  looked  at  the  thin,  tanned  face  with  liking,  and  the 
keen  pale  eyes  met  his  fairly. 

"  We  haven't,  Sir,  but  we  manage  some'ow." 

"  But  what  about  your  own  duty  ?  " 

"  I'm  tykin'  these  men  over,  Sir."  He  indicated  a  solid 
family  grocer,  a  solicitor,  a  clerk  of  the  County  Court,  a 
Swiss  waiter,  and  two  Navy  Reserve  men  reduced  to  the 
ranks  for  aggressive  intemperance  of  the  methylated  spirit 
kind,  which,  in  the  absence  of  other  liquor,  had  prevailed 
among  a  certain  class,  until  the  intoxicating  medium  was  con- 
fiscated by  Government. 

"  Captain  Thwaite  'as  spared  us  from  the  Cemetery  Works 
to  relieve  Corporal  Brice  an'  'is  little  lot  at  Angle  VII.  South 
Trenches.  A  telephone  message  come  from  our  Colonel  to 
say  Brice's  men  was  bad  with  rheumatism  and  dysentery — 
but  Brice  is  all  right  an'  fit,  Sir — and  " — the  pale  eyes  pleaded 
out  of  the  brickdust-coloured  face — "  I'd  like  the  charnce  o* 
gettin'  nearer  to  the  enemy,  Sir — an'  that's  the  truth." 

Beauvayse  conceded.  "  Very  well.  I'll  square  things  with 
your  commanding  officer  as  we  go  along,  and  explain  matters 
to  the  Colonel  per  telephone  from  Maxim  Outpost  South. 
Come  on  there  when  you've  handed  over  your  men  to  Brice." 

The  pale  eyes  danced.     "  Thank  you,  Sir." 

"  An'  I'll  owe  you  a  dollar  whisky-peg  for  the  good  turn," 
muttered  the  perforated  musician,  as  he  handed  over  the 
cherished  concertina  to  the  volunteer,  "  till  next  Sunday  that 
I  see  you  in  the  stad." 

"  Righto!  "  said  Corporal  Keyse,  accepting  the  sacred  charge. 

"  Look  here,  though,"  came  from  Beauvayse,  "  there's  one 
thing  you  must  remember — what's  your  name  ?  " 

"  Keyse,  sir — Corporal,  A  Company,  Gueldersdorp  Town 
Guard." 

"  Well,  Keyse,  you've  heard  Meisje  hiccoughing  ninety-three 
pound  projectiles  all  the  morning,  haven't  you?" 

"  Couldn't  possibly  miss  'er,  sir  " — the  pale  eyes  twinkled 
as  the  Corporal  finished — "  not  as  long  as  she  misses  me." 

"  She  has  a  talent  for  missing,  otherwise  a  good  many  of  us 
fellows  would  have  heard  the  Long  Call  before  now.  But 
most  of  her  delicate  little  attentions — with  the  exception  of 
one  shell  she  sent  over  the  Women's  Laager,  to  show  the 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  229 

people  there  that  she  doesn't  mind  killin'  females  and  children 
if  she  can't  get  men — most  of  'em  are  meant  for  Maxim  Out- 
post South ;  and  one  of  'em  may  get  home  sometimes,  when  the 
German  gunner  isn't  thinking  of  his  sweetheart.  Then,  if  you 
find  yourself  soarin'  heavenwards  in  a  kind  of  scattered 
anatomical  puzzle-map  of  little  bits,  don't  blame  me  for  oblig- 
in'  you,  that's  all." 

There  was  a  guffaw  from  the  listeners.  W.  Keyse  saluted, 
cheerfully  joining  in. 

"  I  shan't  s'y  a  word,  sir." 

"  By  George,  I  believe  you ! "  said  Beauvayse.  "  What's 
up  ?  Seen  a  ghost  ?  " 

Saxham  had  swung  his  wallet  round,  producing  carbolic, 
antiseptic  gauze,  First  Aid  Bandages,  and  other  surgical  in- 
dispensables  from  its  recesses,  as  by  legerdemain,  and  a  tall, 
stately  black  figure,  followed  by  a  tall,  slender  white  figure, 
had  risen  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth.  The  Mother-Su- 
perior, taking  in  the  situation  and  the  need  of  her  at  a  glance, 
called  a  brief  order  down  the  ladder  stairway,  and  went 
swiftly  over  to  Saxham,  whipping  a  blue  apron  out  of  a  big 
pocket,  tying  it  about  her,  and  pulling  on  a  pair  of  sleeves  of 
the  same  stuff  as  she  went.  Lynette  turned  to  take  the  basin 
of  hot  water  that  the  arm  of  Sister  Tobias  extended  from 
below,  and  the  jaws  of  W.  Keyse  snapped  together.  Until 
he  twigged  the  bronze-red  coils  of  hair  under  the  broad,  rough 
straw  hat,  he  had  thought.  .  .  .  C'r'r! 

We  know  how  the  dancing,  provoking,  mischievous  blue  eyes 
and  adorable  wrist-thick  golden  pigtail  of  Greta  du  Taine 
dwelt  in  his  love-stricken  remembrance.  Her  worshipped 
image  had  got  a  little  rubbed  and  dimmish  of  late  to  be  sure, 
but  breathe  on  the  colours,  and  you  saw  them  come  out  clear, 
and  oh !  bewilderingly  lovely. 

Billy  Keyse  had  never  even  beheld  the  enchantress  since 
that  never-to-be-forgotten  morning  when  he  had  seen  her  pass 
at  the  head  of  the  serpentine  procession  of  pupils,  slowly  wind- 
ing across  the  Market  Square.  But  he  knew  she  was  still  in 
Gueldersdorp.  He  felt  her,  for  one  thing.  We  know  that  in 
his  case  Love's  clairvoyant  instinct  had  got  its  nightcap  on. 
We  saw  Greta  depart  on  the  train  bound  North  for  the  Du 
Taine  homestead  near  Johannesburg.  But  if  she  were  not  in 
Gueldersdorp,  why  did  the  left  breast-pocket  of  the  now  soiled 
and  heavily-patched  khaki  tunic  bulge  so?  C'r'r!  There 
were  six  letters  inside  there,  tied  up  with  a  frayed  bit  of  blue 


230  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

ribbon.  Hers?  'Strewth,  they  were!  And  each  what  you 
might  call  a  Regular  One-er  of  a  love-letter.  Never  mind  the 
paper  being  thumb-marked  as  well  as  cheaply  inferior,  one  can- 
not expect  all  the  refinements  of  civilization  in  a  beleaguered 
town.  It  was  the  spelling  that — although  we  know  W.  Keyse 
to  be  no  cold  orthographist — occasionally  gave  him  pause  as 
he  perused  and  re-perused  the  greasy  but  passionate  page.  And 
why  did  she  sign  herself  "  Fare  Air  ? "  The  sense  of  in- 
gratitude pierced  him  even  as  he  wondered.  Why  shouldn't 
she  if  she  chose?  What  a  proper  beast  he  was  to  grumble! 
Him,  that  ought  to  be  proud  of  her  demeaning  herself  to  stoop 
to  a  young  chap  in  a  lower  station,  so  to  call.  And  her  a 
Regular  Swell. 

He  hugged  the  letters  against  him  with  the  arm  belonging 
to  the  hand  that  held  the  concertina.  Beloved  missives,  where 
was  the  worshipped  writer  now?  Sitting  by  a  tapestry-frame, 
for  he  could  not  imagine  her  peeling  potatoes,  down  in  the 
Convent  bombproof,  dreaming  of  him,  weeping  over  his  last 
letter,  or  blushfully  aware  of  his  vicinity,  panting  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  ladder,  listening  for  the  beloved  accents  of  the  man 
who  .  .  .  Hold  hard,  though!  she  had  never  heard  the  voice 
of  Billy  Keyse ;  or  he  hers  for  that  matter,  but  he  would  have 
recognized  it  among  a  thousand.  He  had  told  her  so,  writing 
with  ink  pencil,  of  the  kind  that  when  sucked  in  moments  of 
forgetfulness  tastes  peculiarly  horrible,  and  tinges  the  saliva 
with  violet,  at  spare  moments  in  the  trench.  A  phlegmatic 
Chinaman  acted  as  Love's  postman,  handing  in  the  envelopes 
that  were  addressed  to  Mr.  W.  Keyse,  Esquer,  in  caligraphy 
that  began  in  the  top  left-hand  corner,  and  trickled  gradually 
down  into  the  right-hand  bottom  one.  Pumping  the  Celestial 
iwas  no  use.  John  Tow  sabee'd  only  that  a  fair  foreign  devil 
'gave  the  one  missive,  with  a  tikkie  for  delivery,  and  'spose 
one  time  Tow  makee  plenty  good  walkee  back  with  anulla 
paper  some  pidgin  bime-bye  catchee  more  tikkie.  If  walkee 
back  no  paper,  too  muchee  John  catchee  hellee,  reaping  only 
reproaches  and  no  tikkie  at  all. 

Judge  how  the  heart  of  W.  Keyse  bumped  against  the  con- 
certina when  the  slender  vision  in  the  holland  skirt  and  white 
blouse  and  broad  straw  hat  appeared  from  underground.  It 
was  not  she,  though,  Queen  of  heroic  thoughts,  inspirer  of 
deeds  of  daring  yet  to  be  done,  who  followed  the  Mother- 
Superior. 

It  was  the  loveliest  girl  Beauvayse  had  ever  seen,  or  ever 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  231 

would  see.  The  girl  who  had  stood  up  in  defence  of  two  nuns 
against  a  threatening  gang  of  rowdy  Transvaalers,  one  day  in 
the  Recreation  Ground,  the  girl  who  had  passed  as  the  Staff 
dismounted  at  the  Hospital  gate  on  the  day  of  appropriation. 
The  Mayor  had  had  no  chance  of  fulfilling  his  promise  of  an 
introduction.  The  Mayor's  wife,  with  her  two  children,  was 
an  inmate  of  the  Women's  Laager.  But  at  last  the  kind  little 
genii  that  deal  with  happenings  and  chances  had  brought  Beau- 
vayse  and  his  divinity  face  to  face.  Now  she  rose  out  of  the 
Convent,  dug-out  in  the  waste  that  had  been  the  Railway 
Official's  front-garden,  like  a  fair  white  Psyche-statue,  delivered 
in  the  course  of  some  convulsion  of  Nature  from  the  matrix 
of  the  earth.  And  she  was  even  more  exquisite  than  his  re- 
membrance of  her,  even  more  .  .  . 

Beauvayse  descended  abruptly  from  an  empyrean  flight  of 
poetic  imagery  to  remember  his  torn  and  soiled  silk  polo-shirt 
with  its  rolled-up  sleeves,  his  earth-stained  cords,  girt  with  a 
belt  of  vari-coloured  webbing,  his  muddy  leather  leggings  and 
boots  with  their  caked  and  dusty  spurs,  telling  of  hard  service 
and  unresting  activity. 

But  he  looked  radiantly  handsome  as  he  leapt  to  the  ground 
and  came  forward,  his  tall  athletic  figure,  trained  by  arduous 
toil  and  incessant  work,  until  the  last  superfluous  ounce  of 
flesh  had  vanished,  looking  the  personification  of  manliness, 
his  tanned  face,  still  clean-shaven  save  for  the  slight  fair  mous- 
tache, one  to  set  any  maiden  dreaming  of  its  straight  clean- 
cut  features  and  beautiful  grey-green  eyes.  The  wide  felt  hat 
he  touched  in  salute  sat  with  a  jaunty  air  on  the  close-cropped 
golden  head.  Here  was  a  gallant,  heartsome  vision  to  greet 
Lynette,  stepping  after  the  Mother  into  that  outer  world, 
where  fire  belched  warning  from  iron  mouths,  and  steel  de- 
struction sped  through  the  skies,  and  bullets  sang  like  hornets 
past  your  head,  or  hit  the  ground  near  your  feet,  sending  up 
little  bushy  columns  and  spirts  of  dust. 

The  wounded  man,  now  carbolized,  plugged,  and  bandaged 
by  Saxham's  dexterous  hands,  took  the  hastily-scrawled  ad- 
mission order,  involved  his  officer,  the  ladies,  and  the  Doctor 
in  a  left-handed  salute,  distributed  a  parting  wink  among  his 
comrades,  counselled  W.  Keyse  in  a  hoarse  whisper  to  go 
tender  on  the  off-side  G.  of  the  instrument  he  dandled,  and 
trudged  sturdily  away  in  the  direction  of  the  Hospital. 

"  Thank  you,  ma'am.  There's  no  stealing  a  march  on  you," 
Beauvayse  said  to  the  Mother-Superior,  touching  his  hat  with 


232  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

his  gay,  swaggering  grace,  as  she  emptied  a  bowl  of  red  water 
on  the  ground,  and  whisked  the  blue  apron  and  sleeves  back 
into  the  vast  recesses  of  the  mysterious  pocket.  "  But  you're 
spoiling  us.  Hot  water  isn't  on  tap,  as  a  rule,  for  field-dress- 
ings, and — and  won't  you "  He  reddened  to  the  fair  un- 

tanned  skin  upon  his  temples.  "  Mayn't.  I  ask,  ma'am,  to  be 
introduced  to  Miss  Mildare?" 

The  Mother  complied  with  his  request,  smiling  indulgently. 
She  had  known  and  loved  this  bright  boy's  mother  in  her  early 
married  days.  The  Dark  Rose  of  Ireland  and  the  White  Rose 
of  Devon,  a  noted  Society  phrasemonger  had  dubbed  them, 
seeing  them  together  on  the  lawn  one  Ascot  Cup  Day,  their 
light  draperies  and  delicate  ribbons  whip-whipping  in  the 
pleasant  June  breeze,  ivory-skinned,  jetty-locked  Celtic  beauty 
and  grey-eyed,  flaxen-locked  Saxon  fairness  in  charming,  con- 
fidential juxtaposition  under  one  lace  sunshade,  lined  with  what 
has  been  the  last  new  fashionable  colour  under  twenty  names, 
since  then;  only  that  year  they  called  it  Rose  fane*  Richard 
Mildare  praised  the  sunshade,  a  Paris  affair  supplied  by  Worth 
with  his  creation,  Lady  Biddy  Bawne's  beautiful  gown.  He 
asked  Lady  Biddy  to  marry  him  at  the  back  of  the  box  on  the 
Grand  Stand  when  Verneuil  was  winning  the  Cup.  Who 
shall  dare  say  that  he  was  not  then  a  sincere  lover?  thought 
the  Mother-Superior  of  the  Convent  of  the  Holy  Way.  And 
then  she  recalled  her  wandering  thoughts,  and  turned  them  to 
the  One  Lover  who  never  betrays  His  chosen.  And  her  rapt 
eyes  looking  up,  seemed  to  pierce  beyond  the  flaming  sky-vault 
overhead.  She  forgot  all  else,  suddenly  snatched  from  earthly 
consciousness  to  beatific  realization  of  the  Divine. 

There  had  been  for  some  minutes  now  a  lull  in  the  bombard- 
ment from  the  ridges.  The  enemy's  guns  were  silent  a  space, 
and  the  hot  batteries  of  harassed  Gueldersdorp  snatched  a  brief 
respite  while  Boers  gathered  for  the  nine  o'clock  coffee-drink- 
ing round  their  little  snapping  fires  of  dried  dung  and  tindery 
bush.  Now  and  then  a  rifle  cracked,  and  a  bullet  sang  past 
or  whitted  in  the  dust.  But  comparative  peace  brooded  over 
the  shattered  hamlet  of  wrecked  homes  and  ploughed-up,  lit- 
tered roads,  and  raw  earthworks  blistering  in  the  pitiless  sun. 

"  Miss  Mildare."  Beauvayse  was  speaking  in  that  pleasant, 
boyish  voice  of  his,  standing  close  to  Lynette,  his  tall  head 
bending  for  a  glimpse  of  the  eyes  of  golden  hazel,  that  were 
shaded  by  the  broad,  rough  straw  hat.  "  If  you  knew  how 
I've  waited  for  this.  Nearly  seven  weeks  since  one  day  in 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  233 

early  October,  when  I  saw  you  on  the  Recreation  Ground, 
where  some  brutes  were  annoying  you,  and  a  day  or  so  later 
you  went  by  the  Hospital  as  I  rode  up  with  the  Chief.  But, 
of  course,  you  don't  remember?"  His  eyes  begged  her  tx>  say 
she  did. 

"  I  remember  quite  well."  It  was  the  voice  he  had 
imagined  for  her — low,  and  round,  and  clear,  with  just  an 
undernote  of  plaintiveness  matching  the  wistful  appeal  of  her 
eyes.  At  the  first  sound  of  it  a  shudder  of  exquisite  delight 
went  through  him,  as  though  she  had  touched  him  with  her 
slender  white,  bare  hand  on  the  bared  breast. 

"  Thank  you  for  not  quite  forgetting.  You  don't  know 
what  it  means  to  me,  being  kept  in  mind  by  you." 

"  I  do  not  know  that  I  kept  you  in  mind."  There  was  a 
touch  of  girlish  dignity  in  her  utterance.  "  I  only  said  that 
I  remembered  quite  well." 

He  bent  his  head  nearer,  and  lowered  his  pleasant  voice  to 
a  coaxing,  confidential  tone. 

"  You'll  think  me  a  presumptuous  kind  of  fellow  for  talk- 
ing like  this,  won't  you,  Miss  Mildare?  But  the  circum- 
stances are  exceptional,  aren't  they?  We're  shut  up  away 
from  the  big  world  outside  in  a  little  world  of  our  own,  and 
— such  chances  fall  to  every  man  and  most  of  the  women  here: 
a  shrapnel  bullet  or  a  shell-splinter  might  stop  me  before  an- 
other hour  goes  by  from  ever  saying — what  I've  felt  for  weeks 
on  end  had  got  to  be  said — what  I'd  risk  a  dozen  lives,  if  I 
had  'em,  to  get  the  opportunity  of  saying  to  you."  His  hot 
eagerness  frightened  her.  Her  downcast  eyelids  quivered,  and 
her  flushed  maiden-face  shrank  from  him. 

"Oh,  don't  be  angry!  Don't  move  away!"  Beauvayse  en- 
treated ;  for  Lynette's  anxious  glance  had  gone  in  search  of 
the  Mother-Superior,  with  whom  Saxham  was  now  discussing 
the  nuns'  idea  of  utilizing  the  Convent  as  a  Convalescent  Hos- 
pital. In  another  instant  she  would  have  taken  refuge  by  her 
side.  "  If  you  knew  how  I  have  thought  of  you  and  dreamed 
of  you  since  I  saw  you!  If  you  could  only  understand  how 
I  shall  think  of  you  now!  If  you  could  only  realize  how 
awfully,  utterly  strange  it  is  to  feel  as  I  am  feeling!  "  His 
voice  was  a  tremulous,  fervent  whisper.  His  eyes  gleamed 
like  emeralds  in  the  shadow  of  the  wide-brimmed  felt  hat. 
"  And  if  I  die  to-day,  it  won't  end  there.  I  shall  think  of  you, 
and  long  for  you,  and  worship  you  wherever  I  am." 

"  Oh,  why  do  you  talk  to  me  like  this?" 


234  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

Lynette's  whisper  was  as  tremulous  as  Beauvayse's  own. 
Her  eyes  lifted  to  the  glowing,  ardent  face  for  one  shy  instant, 
and  found  it  good  to  look  upon.  Men,  young  and  not  undesir- 
able, had  tried  to  make  love  to  her  before,  at  dances  and 
parties  and  picnics  to  which  she  had  been  chaperoned  by  the 
Mayor's  wife.  But  the  first  hot  .glance,  the  first  word  that 
carried  the  vibration  of  a  passionate  meaning,  had  wakened  the 
old  terror  in  her,  and  bidden  her  escape.  The  nymph  had  al- 
ways taken  flight  at  the  first  step  upon  the  bank,  the  first 
rustle  of  the  sedges.  She  had  never  lingered  to  feel  the  air 
stirred  by  another  burning  breath.  She  had  never  asked  any 
one  of  those  other  men  why  he  talked  like  that.  Beauvayse 
went  on: 

"  Perhaps  I  even  seem  a  little  mad  to  you — fellows  have 
told  me  lately  that  I  went  on  as  if  I  had  a  tile  off.  Perhaps 
I'm  what  the  Scotch  call  '  fly.'  I've  got  Highland  blood  in 
me,  anyhow.  And  you  have  set  it  on  fire,  I  think — started  it 
boiling  and  racing  and  leaping  in  my  veins  as  no  woman  ever 
did  before.  You  slender  white  witch!  you  fay  of  mist  and 
moonlight,  you've  woven  a  spell,  and  tangled  my  soul  in  it, 
and  nothing  in  Life  or  in  Death  will  ever  loose  me  again." 
His  tone  changed,  became  infinitely  caressing.  "  How  sweet 
and  dear  you  are  to  be  so  patient  with  me,  while  I'm  sending 
the  Conventionalities  to  the  rightabout  and  terrifying  the 
Proprieties.  Forgive  me,  Miss  Mildare." 

The  pleading  in  his  face  was  exquisite.  She  felt  as  a  bee 
might  feel  drowning  in  honey,  as  she  wreathed  her  white 
fingers  together  upon  the  silver  buckle  of  the  brown  leather 
belt  she  wore,  and  said  confusedly: 

"  I  ...  I  believe  I  ought  to  be  very  angry  with  you." 

His  whisper  touched  her  ear  like  a  kiss,  and  set  her  trem- 
bling. 

"But  you're  not?" 

"  T  " 

She  caught  her  breath  as  he  came  nearer.  There  was  a 
fragrance  from  him — a  perfume  of  youth  and  health  and  vital- 
ity— that  was  powerful,  heady,  intoxicating  as  the  first  warm, 
flower-scented  wind  of  Spring,  blowing  down  a  mountain- 
kloof  from  the  high  ranges.  Her  white-rose  cheeks  took  sud- 
den warmth  of  hue,  and  her  pale  nostrils  quivered.  A  faint, 
mysterious  smile  dawned  upon  her  lips.  Something  of  the  old 
terror  was  upon  her  still,  and  yet — it  was  delicious  to  be  afraid 
of  him. 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  235 

"  Say  that  you  aren't  angry  with  me  for  being  so  thunder- 
ingly  presumptuous.  Please  be  kind  to  me  and  say  it." 

Her  lips  began  to  utter  disjointed  phrases.  "  What  can  it 
matter  really  ?  .  .  .  Oh,  very  well,  then  ...  if  my  saying  so 
is  of  such  .  .  .  importance.  .  .  ." 

"  More  important  than  anything  in  the  world ! "  he  de- 
clared. 

"  Very  well,  then,  I  am  not  angry — not  furiously  so,  at 
least."  The  bud  of  a  smile  repressed  pouted  her  lips. 

"  And,"  he  begged,  "  you'll  let  what  I've  said  to  you  be  our 
secret?  Promise." 

"  Very  well." 

"You  sweetest,  kindest,  loveliest " 

"  Please  don't,"  she  entreated. 

"  And  I  may  know  your  Christian  name  ?  "  he  persisted. 
"  I've  thought  of  everything  in  the  world,  and  nothing's  good 
enough  to  fit  you." 

"  Oh,  how  silly !  "  Her  eyes  gleamed  with  laughter.  "  It 
is  Lynette." 

He  caught  at  it  with  rapture.  "  Perfect !  The  last  touch. 
.  .  .  The  scent  of  the  rose,  or  say  the  dewdrop  on  it.  By 
George,  I'm  in  earnest !  " 

He  had  spoken  incautiously  loud.  A  grating  voice  address- 
ing him  pulled  his  head  round. 

"  Lord  Beauvayse  .  .  ." 

"Did  you  speak  to  me,  Doctor?  As  I  was  saying,  Miss 
Mildare,"  he  went  on,  continuing  the  blameless  conversation, 
"  dust  storms  and  flies  are  the  twin  curses  of  South  Africa." 

The  harsh  voice  spoke  to  him  again.  He  looked  round,  met 
Saxham's  eyes,  hard  and  cold  as  blue  stones.  The  Doctor  said 
grimly: 

"  You  may  not  be  aware  that  your  men  are  drawing 
fire." 

It  was  undeniable  fact.  The  bullets  had  begun  to  hit  the 
ground  under  the  horses'  bellies,  spurting  little  columns  of 
dust  and  flattening  against  the  stones.  Coffee-drinking  was 
over  in  the  enemy's  trenches,  and  the  business  of  the  day  had 
begun  again.  Beauvayse  bade  the  ladies  good-morning,  and 
swung  himself  into  the  saddle. 

"Au  revoir,  Miss  Mildare.  Please  get  under  cover  at 
once."  The  proprietorship  in  the  tone  stung  Saxham  to  winc- 
ing. "  Good-morning,  ma'am,"  he  cried  to  the  Mother- 
Superior,  "  we  know  you  ignore  bullets.  So  long,  Doctor. 


236  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

Hope  I  shan't  count  one  in  your  day's  casualty-bag.  Ready, 
boys?" 

The  chatting  troopers  sprang  to  alert  attention.  W.  Keyse, 
pensively  boring  the  sandy  earth  with  the  pneumatic  auger  of 
imagination,  in  search  of  the  loved  one,  believed  to  inhabit  the 
Convent  bombproof,  was  recalled  to  the  surface  by  the  curtly- 
uttered  command,  and  knew  the  thrill  of  hero-worship  as 
Beauvayse  threw  out  his  tightly-clenched  hand,  and  the 
troopers,  answering  the  signal,  broke  into  a  trot.  The  hot 
dust  scurried  at  the  horses'  retreating  heels.  Corporal  Keyse, 
trudging  staunchly  in  their  wake  with  his  five  Town  Guards- 
men, became  ghostlike,  enveloped  in  an  African  replica  of  the 
ginger-coloured  type  of  London  fog.  And  the  Mother- 
Superior  looked  at  her  well-worn  watch. 

"  My  child,  we  must  be  moving  if  you  are  coming  with  me 
to  the  Women's  Laager.  I  am  nearly  an  hour  late  as  it  is." 

"  I  am  ready,  Mother  dear." 

Lynette's  eyes  came  back  from  following  that  dust-cloud  in 
the  southern  distance  to  meet  the  hungry,  jealous  fires  of  Sax- 
ham's  gaze. 

He  had  seen  Beauvayse's  ardent  look,  and  her  shy  heart's 
first  leaf  unfolded  in  the  answering  blush,  and  a  spasm  of  in- 
tolerable anger  gripped  him  as  he  saw.  He  turned  away 
silently,  cursing  his  own  folly,  and  unhitched  his  horse's  bridle 
from  the  broken  gatepost.  With  the  act  a  crowd  rose  up  be- 
fore Lynette  and  a  frightened  horse  reared,  threatening  to 
fall  upon  three  women-figures  hurrying  along  the  side-walk 
outside  the  Hospital,  and  a  heavily-shouldered,  black-haired 
man  in  shabby  white  drills  stepped  out  of  the  throng  and 
seized  the  flying  bridoon-rein,  and  wrenched  the  brute  down. 
She  recognized  the  horse  and  the  man  again,  and  exclaimed: 

"  Why  .  .  .  Mother,  don't  you  remember  the  rearing  horse 
outside  the  Hospital  that  day  in  October?  It  was  Dr.  Sax- 
ham  who  caught  him,  and  saved  us  from  getting  hurt." 

"  And  we  never  even  thanked  you."  The  Mother-Superior 
turned  to  Saxham  with  outstretched  hand  and  the  smile  that 
made  her  grave  face  beautiful.  "  What  you  must  have 
thought!  .  .  ." 

"  I  looked  for  the  person  who  had  been  so  prompt,  but  you 
had  vanished — where,  nobody  seemed  to  know,"  Lynette  told 
him  with  her  clear  eyes  on  the  stern,  square  face.  "  And  then 
a  man  in  the  crowd  called ^out,  '  It's  the  Dop  Doctor!'  And 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  237 

I  thought  what  an  odd  nickname!  .  .  ."  She  broke  off  in 
dismay.  Saxham  had  become  livid.  His  grim  jaws  clamped 
themselves  together,  and  the  blue  eyes  grew  hard  as  stone. 
One  instant  he  stood  immovable,  the  Waler's  bridle  on  his  left 
arm,  his  right  hand  clenched  upon  the  old  hunting-crop.  Then 
he  said  very  coldly  and  distinctly: 

"  As  you  observe,  it  is  a  queer  nickname.  But,  at  any  rate, 
I  had  fairly  earned " 

The  bugle  from  the  Staff  headquarters  sounded,  drowning 
the  rest  of  the  sentence.  The  Catholic  Church  bell  tolled. 
The  other  bells  took  up  the  warning,  and  the  sentries  called 
again  from  post  to  post: 

''Ware  gun,  Number  Two!     Southern  Quarter,  'ware!" 

The  Krupp  bellowed  from  the  enemy's  north  redoubt,  and 
cleverly  lobbed  a  seven-pound  shell  not  far  behind  that  rapidly- 
moving,  distant  pillar  of  dust,  the  nucleus  of  which  was  a 
little  troop  of  cantering  Irregulars,  and  not  far  in  front  of  the 
lower,  slower-moving  cloud,  the  heart  of  which  was  a  little 
knot  of  tramping  Town  Guardsmen.  The  shell  burst  with  a 
splitting  crack,  earth  and  flying  stones  mingled  with  the  deadly 
green  flame  and  the  poisonous  chemical  fumes  of  the  lyddite. 
Figures  scurried  hither  and  thither  in  the  smoke  and  smother; 
one  lay  prone  upon  the  ground.  .  .  . 

At  the  instant  of  the  explosion  Saxham  had  leaped  forwards, 
setting  his  body  and  the  horse's  as  a  bulwark  between  Death 
and  the  two  women.  Now,  though  Lynette's  rough  straw 
hat  had  been  whisked  from  her  head  by  a  force  invisible,  he 
saw  her  safe,  caught  in  the  Mother-Superior's  embrace, 
sheltered  by  the  tall,  protecting  figure  as  the  sapling  is  sheltered 
by  the  pine. 

"  We  are  not  hurt,"  the  Mother  protested,  though  her  cheek 
had  been  cut  by  a  flying  fluke  of  flint,  and  was  bleeding.  "  But 
look  .  .  .  over  there ! "  She  pointed  over  the  veld  to  the 
prostrate  brown  figure,  and  a  cry  of  alarm  broke  from  Lynette. 

"  Oh,  Mother,  who  .  .  .  ?  " 

"  It  is  a  Town  Guardsman,"  Saxham  answered,  his  cold 
blue  eyes  meeting  the  wild  frightened  gaze  of  the  pale  girl. 
"  Lord  Beauvayse  and  the  Irregulars  got  off  scot-free.  Rev- 
erend Mother,  do  not  think  of  coming.  Please  go  on  to  the 
Women's  Laager.  I  will  see  to  the  wounded  man,  and  follow 
by-and-by." 

He  mounted,  refusing  all  offers  of  aid,  and  rode  off.     Look- 


238  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

ing  back  an  instant,  he  saw  the  black  figure  of  the  woman 
and  the  white  figure  of  the  girl  setting  out.  upon  their  perilous 
journey  over  the  bare  patch  of  ground  where  Death  made 
harvest  every  day.  They  kissed  each  other  before  they  started, 
and  again  Saxham  thought  of  Ruth  and  Naomi.  If  Ruth  had 
been  only  one  half  as  lovely  as  this  Convent-grown  lily,  Boaz 
was  decidedly  a  lucky  man.  But  he  had  been  a  respectable, 
sober,  steady-going  farmer,  and  not  a  man  of  thirty-six  with- 
out a  ten-pound  note  in  the  world,  with  a  blighted  career  to 
regret,  and  five  years  of  drunken  wastrelhood  to  be  ashamed  of. 
And  yet  .  .  .  the  drunken  wastrel  had  been  a  man  of  mark 
once,  and  earned  his  thousands.  And  the  success  that  had  been 
achieved,  and  lost,  could  be  rewon,  and  the  career  that  had 
been  pursued  and  abandoned  could  be  his — Saxham's — again. 
And  what  were  his  publishers  doing  with  those  accumulated 
royalties?  For  he  knew  from  Taggart.  and  McFadyen  that 
his  books  still  sold. 

"The  Past  is  done  with,"  he  said  aloud.  "Why  should 
not  the  Future  be  fair?  " 

And  yet  he  had  nearly  yielded  to  the  impulse  to  own  to 
those  degraded  years,  and  claim  the  nickname  they  had  earned 
him,  and  take  her  loathing  and  contempt  in  exchange.  What 
sudden  madness  had  possessed  him,  akin  to  that  unaccountable, 
overmastering  surge  of  emotion  that  he  had  known  just  now 
when  he  saw  her  tears? 

We  know  the  name  of  the  divine  madness,  but  we  know 
not  why  it  comes.  Suddenly,  after  long  years,  in  a  crowded 
place  or  in  a  solitude  where  two  are,  it  is  upon  you  or  upon 
me.  The  blood  is  changed  to  strange,  ethereal  idea,  the  pulse 
beats  a  tune  that  is  as  old  as  the  Earth  itself,  but  yet  eternally 
new.  Every  breath  we  draw  is  rapture,  every  step  we  take 
leads  us  one  way.  One  voice  calls  through  all  the  voices,  one 
hand  beckons  whether  it  will  or  no,  and  we  follow  because  we 
must.  With  the  Atlantic  rolling  between  us  I  can  feel  your 
heart  beat  against  mine,  and  your  lips  breathe  into  me  your 
soul.  The  light  that  was  upon  your  face,  the  look  that  was 
in  your  eyes  as  you  gave  the  unforgettable,  immemorial  kiss, 
the  clasp  of  your  hands,  the  rising  and  falling  of  your  heart, 
like  a  wave  beneath  a  sea-bird,  like  a  sea-bird  above  a  wave, 
shall  be  with  me  always,  even  to  the  end  of  time  and  beyond 
it. 

For  there  are  many  loves,  but  one  Love. 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  239 


XXX 

A  LONG-LEGGED,  thinnish  officer,  riding  a  khaki-coloured  bicycle 
over  a  dusty  stretch  of  shrapnel-raked  ground,  carrying  a 
riding-whip  tucked  under  his  arm  and  wearing  steel  jack-spurs, 
might  have  been  considered  a  laughter-provoking  object  else- 
where, but  the  point  was  lost  for  Gueldersdorp.  He  got  off 
his  metal  steed  amongst  the  zipping  bullets,  and  came  over  to 
the  little  group  of  Town  Guards  that  were  gathered  round 
Saxham,  who  had  just  ridden  up,  and  their  prostrate  comrade, 
who  writhed  and  groaned  lustily. 

"You  have  a  casualty.     Serious?" 

Saxham  looked  up,  and  his  hard  glance  softened  in  recog- 
nition of  the  Chief. 

"  I'll  tell  you  in  a  moment,  sir." 

The  earth-stained  khaki  tunic  was  torn  down  the  left  side 
and  drenched  with  ominous  red.  A  little  pool  of  the  same 
colour  had  gathered  under  the  sufferer. 

"He  looks  gassly,  don't  him?"  muttered  one  of  the  by- 
standers, the  Swiss  baker  who  was  not  Swiss. 

"  Makes  plenty  of  noise,"  said  the  County  Court  clerk 
hypercritically,  "  for  a  dying  man." 

"Oh  Lud!  oh  Lud!"' 

The  subject  had  bellowed  with  sonority,  testifying  at  least 
to  the  possession  of  an  uninjured  diaphragm,  as  Saxham  began 
to  cut  away  the  tunic. 

"  Oh,  come  now,"  said  a  brisk,  pleasant,  incisive  voice  that 
sent  an  electric  shock  bolting  through  the  presumably  shattered 
frame.  "  That's  not.  so  bad !  " 

"  I  told  you  so,"  muttered  the  County  Court  clerk  to  the 
Swiss  waiter. 

"  You  remember  me,  Colonel  ?  " 

Haggard,  despairing  eyes  rolled  up  at  the  Chief  appealingly. 
He  had  met  the  gaze  of  those  oyster-orbs  before.  He  rec- 
ognized Alderman  Brooker,  proprietor  of  the  grocery  stores  in 
Market  Square,  victim  of  the  outrage  perpetrated  on  a  sentry 
near  the  Convent  on  a  certain  memorable  night  in  October 
last. 

"Yes,  my  man.  Anything  I  can  do?"  He  knelt  down 
beside  the  prostrate  form. 

"  You  can  tell  my  country,  sir,  that  I  died  willingly,"  panted 
the  moribund. 


240  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"With  pleasure,  when  you're  dead.  But  you're  not  yet, 
you  know,  Brooker."  His  keen  glance  was  following  the  run 
of  the  Doctor's  surgical  scissors  through  the  rough  stuff  and 
revelling  in  discovery.  And  Saxham's  set,  square  face  and 
stern  eyes  were  for  once  all  alight  with  laughter.  The  dying 
man  went  on: 

"  It's  a  privilege,  sir,  an  inestimable  privilege,  to  have  shed 
one's  blood  in  a  great  cause." 

"  It  is,  Mr.  Brooker,  but  this  is  different  stuff."  His  keen 
face  wrinkled  with  amusement  as  he  sniffed,  and  dipped  a 
finger  in  the  crimson  puddle.  "  Too  sticky."  He  put  the 
finger  to  his  tongue — "  and  too  sweet.  Show  him  the  bottle, 
Saxham." 

The  Doctor,  imperturbably  grave,  held  forth  at  the  end  of 
the  scissors  the  ripped-up  ruins  of  a  small-sized  india-rubber 
hot-water  bottle,  a  ductile  vessel  that,  buttoned  inside  the 
khaki  tunic,  had  adapted  itself  not  uncomfortably  to  the  still 
existing  rotundities  of  the  Alderman's  figure.  A  hyaena  yell  of 
laughter  broke  from  each  of  the  crowding  heads.  Brooker's 
face  assumed  the  hue  of  the  scarlet  flannel  chest-protector  ex- 
posed by  the  ruthless  steel. 

"What  the — what  the ?"  he  stuttered. 

"  Yes,  that's  the  question.  What  the  devil  was  inside  it, 
Brooker,  when  the  shell-splinter  hit  you  in  the  tummy  and  it 
saved  your  life?  Stand  him  on  his  legs,  men;  he's  as  right 
as  rain.  Now,  Brooker?" 

Brooker,  without  volition,  assumed  the  perpendicular,  and 
began  to  babble: 

"  To  tell  the  truth,  sir,  it  was  loquat  syrup.  Very  soothing 
to  the  chest,  and,  upon  my  honour,  perfectly  wholesome. 
Mrs.  Brooker  makes  it  regularly  every  year,  and — we  sell  a 
twenty-gallon  barrel  over  the  counter,  besides  what  we  keep 
for  ourselves.  And  if  I  am  to  be  exposed  to  mock- 
ery when  Providence  has  snatched  me  from  the  verge  of  the 
grave  .  .  ." 

"  Not  a  watery  grave,  Brooker,"  came  from  the  Chief,  with 
an  irrepressible  chuckle — "  a  syrupy  one.  And — have  I  your 
word  of  honour  that  this  is  a  non-alcoholic  beverage  ?  " 

"  Sir,  to  be  candid  with  you,  I  won't  deny  but  what  it  might 
contain  a  certain  proportion  of  brandy.  And  the  nights  in 
the  trench  being  particularly  cold  and  myself  constitutionally 
liable  to  chill  .  .  .  I — I  find  a  drop  now  and  then  a  comfort, 
sir." 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  241 

"  Ah,  and  have  you  any  more  of  this  kind  of  comfort  at 
your  place  of  business  or  elsewhere?" 

"  Why — why  .  .  ."  the  Alderman  faltered,  "  there  might 
be  a  little  keg,  sir,  in  the  shop,  under  the  desk  in  the  counting- 
house." 

"  Requisitioned,  Mr.  Brooker,  as  a  Government  store. 
You  may  feel  more  chilly  without  it;  you'll  certainly  sleep 
more  lightly.  As  far  as  I  can  see,  it  has  been  more  useful 
outside  of  you  than  ever  it  was  in.  And — the  safety  of  this 
town  depends  on  the  cool  heads  of  the  defenders  who  man  the 
trenches.  A  fuddled  man  behind  a  gun  is  worse  than  no  man 
to  me." 

The  voice  rang  hard  and  clear  as  a  gong.  "  I'm  no  teeto- 
taller. Abstinence  is  the  rule  I  enforce,  by  precept  and  ex- 
ample. While  men  are  men  they'll  drink  strong  liquor.  But 
as  long  as  they  are  not  fool-men  and  brute-men,  they  can  be 
trusted  not  to  lap  when  they're  on  duty.  Those  I  find  un- 
trustworthy I  mark  down,  and  they  will  be  dealt  with  rigor- 
ously. You  understand  me,  Brooker?  You  look  as  if  you  did. 
You've  had  a  narrow  squeak.  Be  thankful  for  it  that  nothing 
but  a  bruise  over  the  ribs  has  come  of  it.  Corporal,  fall  in 
your  men,  and  get  to  your  duty." 

W.  Keyse  and  his  martial  citizens  tramped  on,  the  re- 
suscitated Brooker  flying  rags  of  sanguine  stain.  Then  the 
stern  face  of  the  Chief  broke  up  in  laughter.  The  crinkled-up 
eyes  ran  over  with  tears  of  mirth. 

"Lord,  that  fellow  will  be  the  death  of  me!  Tartuglia  in 
the  flesh — how  old  Gozzi  would  have  revelled  in  him !  Those 
pathetic,  osyter-eyes,  that  round,  flabby  face,  that  comic  nose, 
and  the  bleating  voice  with  the  sentimental  quaver  in  it,  reel- 
ing off  the  live  man's  dying  speech.  .  .  ."  He  wiped  his 
brimming  eyes.  "  Since  the  time  when  Boer  spies  hocussed 
him  on  guard — you  remember  that  lovely  affair? — he's  reg- 
istered a  vow  to  impress  me  with  his  gallantry  and  devotion,  or 
die  in  the  attempt.  He's  the  most  admirably  unconscious 
humbug  I've  ever  yet  met.  Sands  his  sugar  and  brown-papers 
his  teas  philanthropically,  for  the  good  of  the  public,  and  de- 
nounces men  who  put  in  Old  Squareface  and  whisky-pegs,  as 
he  fuddles  himself  with  his  loquat  brandy  after  shop  hours  in 
the  sitting-room  back  of  the  store.  But  let  us  be  thankful  that 
Providence  has  sent  Brooker  on  a  special  mission  to  play 
Pantaloon  in  this  grimmish  little  interlude  of  ours.  For  we'll 
want  every  scrap  of  Comic  Relief  we  can  get  by-and-by,  Sax- 


242  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

ham,  if  the  other  one  doesn't  turn  up — say  by  the  middle  of 
January." 

"  I  understand,  sir."  Saxham,  to  whom  this  man's  face 
was  as  a  book  well  loved,  read  in  it  that  the  Commissariat  was 
caving.  "  There  has  been  another  Boer  cattle-raid  ?  " 

The  face  that  was  turned  to  his  own  in  reply  had  suddenly 
grown  deeply-lined  and  haggard.  "  There  has  been  a  lot  of 
cattle-shooting.  Lobbing  shrapnel  at  grazing  cows  was  always 
quite  a  favourite  game  with  Bronnckers.  But  his  gunners  hit 
oftener  than  they  used  to.  And  the  Government  forage  won't 
hold  out  for  ever."  He  patted  the  brown  Waler,  who  pricked 
his  sagacious  ears  and  threw  up  his  handsome  bluntish  head  in 
acknowledgment  of  his  master's  caress.  "  Presently  we  shall 
be  killing  our  mounts  to  save  their  lives — and  ours.  Oats  and 
horseflesh  will  keep  life  in  men — and  in  children  and  women. 
.  .  .  The  devil  of  it  is,  Saxham,  that  there  are  such  a  lot 
of  women." 

"  And  seventy-five  out  of  a  hundred  of  them  stayed  out  of 
pure  curiosity,"  came  grimly  from  Saxham. 

"  To  see  what  a  siege  would  be  like.  Well,  poor  souls,  they 
know  now!  You  were  going  over  to  the  Women's  Laager. 
I'll  walk  with  you,  and  say  my  say  as  I  go.  I'm  on  my  way 
to  Nordenfeldt  Fort  West.  Something  has  gone  wrong  with 
the  telephone-wire  between  there  and  Staff  headquarters,  and 
I  can't  get  anything  through  but  Volapuk  or  Esperanto.  And 
those  happen  to  be  two  of  the  languages  I  haven't  studied." 
The  dry,  humorous  smile  curved  the  reddish-brown  moustache 
again.  The  pleasant  little  whistle  stirred  the  short-clipped  hairs 
of  it  as  the  two  men  turned  in  the  direction  of  the  Women's 
Laager,  over  which  the  Red-cross  flag  was  fluttering,  and 
where  the  spider  with  the  little  Boer  mare,  picking  at  the 
scanty  grass,  waited  outside  the  earthworks.  Saxham 's  eyes 
did  not  travel  so  far.  They  were  fastened  upon  a  tall  black 
figure  and  a  less  tall  and  more  slender  white  figure  that  were 
by  this  time  halfway  upon  their  perilous  journey  across  the 
patch  of  veld,  bare  and  scorched  by  hellish  fires,  and  ploughed 
by  shrapnel  ball  into  furrows  whence  Death  had  reaped  his 
harvest  day  by  day. 

"  There  goes  one  of  the  women  we  couldn't  have  done 
without,"  commented  his  companion,  wheeling  his  bicycle  be- 
side Saxham,  leading  the  brown  Waler. 

"  It  is  the  Mother-Superior,"  Saxham  said,  "  with  her  ward, 
Miss  Mildare." 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  243 

"  Ah !  My  Invariable  reply  to  Beauvayse — you  know  my 
junior  A.D.C.,  who  daily  clamours  for  an  introduction  to  Miss 
Mildare — is,  that  I  have  not  yet  had  one  myself,  though  at 
the  outset  of  affairs  I  encountered  the  young  lady  under  rather 
trying  circumstances,  in  which  she  showed  plenty  of  pluck. 
I  thought  I  had  told  you.  No?  Well,  it  was  one  morning 
on  the  Recreation  Ground.  The  School  was  out  walking  a 
brace  of  nuns  in  charge,  and  some  Dutch  loafers  mobbed  them 
— threatened  to  lay  hands  on  the  Sisters — and  Miss  Mildare 
stood  up  in  defence — head  up,  eyes  blazing,  a  slim,  tawny- 
haired  young  lioness  ready  to  spring.  And  Beauvayse  was 
with  me,  and  ever  since  then  has  been  dead  set  upon  making 
her  acquaintance." 

Saxham's  blood  warmed  to  the  picture.  But  he  said,  and 
his  tone  was  not  pleasant :  "  Lord  Beauvayse  attained  the 
height  of  his  ambition  a  few  minutes  ago." 

"  Did  he  ?  Well,  I  hope  disillusion  was  not  the  outcome 
of  realization.  Up  to  the  present " — the  humorous,  keen  eyes 
were  wrinkled  at  the  corners — "  all  the  boy's  swans  have 
been  geese,  some  of  'em  the  sable  kind." 

Saxham  answered  stiffly:  "I  should  say  that  in- this  case 
the  swan  decidedly  predominates." 

The  other  whistled  a  bar  of  his  pleasant  little  tune  before 
he  spoke  again.  "  It  is  a  capital  thing  for  Beauvayse,  being 
shut  up  here,  out  of  the  way  of  women." 

"  Are  there  no  women  in  Gueldersdorp  ?  " 

"  None  of  the  kind  Beauvayse's  canoe  is  given  to  capsizing 
on."  The  line  in  his  senior's  cheek  flickered  with  a  hinted 
smile.  "  None  of  the  kind  that  run  after  him,  lie  in  wait  for 
him,  buzz  round  him  like  wasps  about  a  honey-bowl.  I've  de- 
veloped muscle  getting  the  boy  out  of  amatory  scrapes,  with  the 
Society  octopus,  with  the  Garrison  husband-hunter,  with  the 
professional  man-eater,  theatrical  or  music-hall;  and  the 
latest,  most  inexpressible  She,  is  always  the  loveliest  woman  in 
the  world.  Queer  world !  " 

"  A  damned  queer  world !  "  agreed  Saxham. 

"  I'd  prefer  to  call  it  a  blessed  queer  one,  because,  with  all 
its  chaotic,  weltering  incongruities — there's  a  Carlyleism  for 
you — I  love  it!  I  couldn't  live  without  loving  it  and  laugh- 
ing at  it,  any  more  than  Beauvayse  could  get  on  minus  an  affair 
of  the  heart.  Ah,  yes,  that  amatory  lyre  of  his  is  an  uncom- 
monly adaptable  instrument.  I've  known  it  thrummed  to  the 
praises  of  a  middle-aged  Duchess — quite  a  beauty  still,  even  by 


244  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

daylight,  with  her  three  veils  on,  and  an  Operatic  soprano,  with 
a  mascot  cockatoo,  not  to  mention  a  round  dozen  of  frisky 
matrons  of  the  kind  that  exploit  nice  boys.  Just  before  we 
came  out,  it  could  play  nothing  but  that  famous  song-and-dance 
tune  that  London  went  mad  over  at  the  Jollity  in  June — It  is 
.raving  over  still,  I  believe.  Can't  give  you  the  exact  title  of 
;  the  thing,  but  '  Darling,  will  You  meet  Me  in  the  Centre  of 
the  Circle  that  the  Limelight  Makes  upon  the  Floor,  Tiddle-e- 
yum  ? '  would  meet  the  case.  We  have  Musical  Comedy  now 
in  place  of  what  used  to  be  Burlesque  in  your  London  days, 
Saxham,  with  a  Leading  Lady  instead  of  a  Principal  Boy,  and 
a  Chorus  in  long  skirts." 

Saxham  admitted  with  a  cynical  twitch  of  the  mouth: 

"  There's  nothing  so  short  as  a  long  skirt — properly  man- 
aged." 

"  You're  right.  And  Lessie  Lavigne  and  the  rest  of  the 
nimble  sisterhood  devote  their  gifts — Thespian  and  Terp- 
sichorean — to  demonstrating  the  fact.  Oh,  damned  cowardly 
hounds!"  The  voice  jarred  and  clanged  with  irrepressible 
anger.  "Saxham,  can't  you  see?  Bronncker's  Sharpshooters 
are  sniping  at  the  women — the  Sister  of  Mercy  and  the  girl." 

His  glance,  as  well  as  Saxham's,  had  followed  the  tall 
black  figure  and  the  slender  white  figure  on  their  journey 
through  Death's  harvest-field.  But  his  trained  eye  had  been 
first  to  see  the  little  jets  and  puffs  of  sickly  hot,  reddish  dust 
rising  about  their  perilous  path.  They  walked  quickly,  but 
without  hurry,  keeping  a  pace  apart,  and  holding  one  another 
by  the  hand.  Saxham,  watching  them,  said,  with  dry  lips  and 
a  deadly  sickness  at  the  heart: 

"  And  we  can  do  nothing?  " 

"  Nothing !  It's  one  of  those  things  a  man  has  got  to  look 
on  at,  and  wonder  why  the  Almighty  doesn't  interfere.  Oh, 
to  have  the  fellows  triced  up  for  three  dozen  of  the  best  apiece 
— good  old-fashioned  measure.  See,  they're  getting  near  the 
laager  now.  They'll  soon  be  under  cover.  But — I  wonder  the 
Convent  cares  to  risk  its  ewe  lanb  on  that  patch  of  veld." 

"  It  is  my  doing."  Saxham's  eyes  were  glued  on  the  black 
figure  and  the  white  figure  nearing,  nearing  the  embrasure  in 
the  earthwork  redoubt,  and  his  face  was  of  an  ugly  blue-white, 
and  dabbled  with  sweat. 

"Your  doing?  " 

"  Mine.  I  was  called  in,  to  find  Miss  Mildare  breaking 
down  from  suspense,  and  the  overstrain  of  reaction.  And — to 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  245 

avert  even  worse  evils,  I  prescribed  the  tonic  of  danger.  There 
was  no  choice In  at  last!  " 

The  Sister  of  Mercy  and  the  girl  had  vanished  behind  the 
dumpy  earth-bag  walls.  He  thought  the  white  figure  had 
glanced  back,  and  waved  its  hand,  and  then  a  question  from  his 
companion  startled  him  beyond  his  ordinary  stolid  self-control. 

"  By  the  way  .  .  .  with  reference  to  Miss  Mildare,  have  you 
any  idea  whether  she  proposes  taking  the  veil?" 

"  How  should  I  have  ideas  upon  the  possibility?"  The 
opaque,  smooth  skin  of  the  square,  pale  face  was  dyed  with  a 
sudden  rush  of  dark  blood.  The  Colonel  did  not  look  at  it, 
but  said,  as  a  bullet  sang  upon  a  stone  near  his  boot,  and  flat- 
tened into  a  shiny  star  of  lead: 

"  I  would  give  something  to  hear  you  laugh  sometimes, 
Saxham.  You're  too  much  in  earnest,  my  dear  fellow.  Burub 
Njal  himself  could  hardly  have  been  more  grim." 

Saxham  answered: 

"  That  fellow  in  the  Saga,  you  mean.  He  laughed  only  at 
the  end,  I  think,  when  the  great  roof-beam  burned  through  and 
the  hall  fell  in.  But  my  castle  tumbled  about  my  ears  in  the 
beginning,  and  I  laughed  then,  I  remember." 

"  And,  take  it  from  me,  you  will  live  to  laugh  again  and 
again,"  said  the  kindly  voice,  "  at  the  man  who  took  it  for 
granted  that  everything  was  over,  and  did  not  set  to  work  by 
dawn  of  the  next  day  building  up  the  hall  greater  than  before. 
Those  old  Vikings  did  '  and  each  time  the  high  seat  was  dight 
more  splendidly,  and  the  hangings  of  the  closed  beds  woven 
more  fair.'  They  never  knew  when  they  were  beaten,  those 
grand  old  fellows,  and  so  it  came  about  that  they  never  were. 
By  the  way,  I  have  something  here  that  concerns  you." 

"  Concerns  me?  " 

"  I  think  I  may  say,  nearly  concerns  you.  A  paragraph  in 
this  copy  of  the  Cape  Tourn  Mercury,  which,  by  the  way,  is 
three  weeks  old." 

A  rubbed  and  shabby  newspaper,  folded  small,  came  out  of 
the  baggy  breast-pocket  of  the  khaki  jacket.  Saxham  received 
it  with  visible  annoyance. 

"  Some  belated  notice  of  one  of  my  books."  The  scowl  with 
which  he  surveyed  the  paper  testified  to  a  strong  desire  to  pitch 
it  to  the  winds. 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it.  It's  an  advertisement  inserted  by  a  London 
f. rm  of  solicitors1 — Donkin,  Donkin,  and  Judd,  Lincoln's  Inn. 
Possibly  you  are  acquainted  with  Donkin,  if  not  with  Judd." 


246  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

"They  are  the  solicitors  for  the  trustees  of  my  mother's 
property,  sir.  I  heard  from  them  three  years  ago,  when  I 
was  at  Diamond  Town.  They  returned  my  last  letter  to  her, 
and  told  me  of  her  death." 

"  They  state  in  the  usual  formula  that  it  will  be  to  your  ad- 
vantage to  communicate  with  them.  May  I,  as  a  friend,  urge 
on  you  the  necessity  of  doing  so." 

Saxham's  grim  mouth  shut  close.  His  eyes  brooded  sul- 
lenly. 

"  I  will  think  it  over,  sir." 

"  You  haven't  much  time.  A  despatch-runner  from 
Koodoosvaal  got.  through  the  enemy's  lines  last  night  with 
some  letters  and  this  paper.  No,  no  word  of  the  Relief.  His 
verbal  news  was  practically  nil.  He  goes  out  at  midnight  with 
some  cipher  messages.  And,  if  you  will  let  me  have  your 
reply  to  the  advertisement  with  the  returned  paper  by  eleven 
at  latest,  I  will  see  that  it  is  sent."  The  rather  peremptory 
tone  softened — became  persuasive.  "You  must  build  up  the 
great  hall  again,  Saxham,  and  building  can't  be  done  without 
money.  And — it  occurs  to  me  that  this  may  be  some  question 
of  a  legacy." 

"  My  father  was  not  a  wealthy  man,"  Saxham  said.  "  He 
gave  me  a  costly  education,  later  advanced  four  thousand 
pounds  for  the  purchase  of  a  West  End  practice,  upon  the 
understanding  that  I  was  to  expect  no  more  from  him,  and 
that  the  bulk  of  his  property,  with  the  exception  of  a  sum  left 
as  provision  for  my  mother,  should  be  strictly  entailed  upon 
my  brother  and  his  heirs,  if  he  should  marry.  The  arrange- 
ment was  most  just,  as  I  was  then  in  receipt  of  a  considerable 
income  from  my  profession,  and  my  father  died  before  my  cir- 
cumstances altered  for  the  worse.  Independently  of  the  pro- 
vision he  made  for  her,  my  mother  possessed  a  small  jointure, 
a  freehold  estate  in  South  Wales,  bringing  in,  when  the  house 
is  let,  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  a  year.  That  was 
to  have  been  left  to  me  as  the  younger  son.  But  her  trustees 
informed  me,  through  these  solicitors,  that  she  had  changed 
her  mind,  as  she  had  a  perfect  right  to  do,  and  bequeathed 
everything  she  possessed  to  my  brother's  son,  a  child  who  " — 
Saxham's  voice  was  deadly  cold — "may  be  about  three  years 
old." 

"  A  later  will  may  have  been  found.  If  I  have  any  influ- 
ence with  you,  Saxham,  I  would  use  it  in  urging  you  to  reply 
to  the  advertisement." 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  247 

Saxham  agreed  unwillingly :     "  Very  well." 

The  other  knew  the  point  gained,  and  adroitly  changed  the 
conversation.  It  grew  severely  technical,  bristling  with  scien- 
tific views,  dealing  chiefly  with  food-values.  The  black  cloud 
cleared  from  Saxham's  forehead  as  he  lectured  on  the  energy- 
fuels,  and  settled  the  minimum  of  protein,  fat,  starch,  and 
sugar  necessary  to  keep  the  furnace  of  Life  burning  in  the 
human  body. 

Milk,  that  precious  fluid,  could  henceforth  only  be  given  to 
invalids  and  children.  Margarine  and  jam  were  severely 
relegated  to  the  list  of  luxuries.  Sardines,  tinned  salmon,  and 
American  canned  goods  had  entirely  given  out.  And  flour,  the 
staff  of  life,  was  vanishing. 

The  joy  of  battle  lightened  in  their  faces  as  they  talked, 
forging  weapons  that  should  make  men  enduring,  and  Saxham 
warmed.  His  icy  crust  of  habitual  silence  melted  and  broke 
up.  He  became  eloquent,  pouring  out  his  treasured  projects, 
suggesting  substitutes  for  this,  and  makeshifts  for  that  and  the 
other.  He  was  in  his  element — he  knew  the  ground  he  trod. 
He  thrust  out  his  grim  under-jaw,  and  hulked  with  his  heavy 
shoulders  as  he  talked  to  this  man  who  understood;  and  every 
supple  movement  of  his  surgeon's  hand  pointed  out  some  fresh 
expedient,  and  the  singing  bullets  went  by  or  whit-whitted 
about  them  in  the  dust,  and  now  and  then  a  shell  burst  over 
patient  Gueldersdorp. 

They  parted  at  the  Women's  Laager,  and  as  the  khaki 
bicycle  grew  small  in  distance,  Saxham  realized  with  a  shock 
that  he  was  happy,  that  life  had  suddenly  become  sweet,  and 
opened  out  anew  before  him  in  a  vista,  not  of  shining  promise, 
but  with  one  golden  gleam  of  Hope  in  it,  to  a  man  freed  by 
the  force  of  Will  from  the  bondage  of  that  accursed  liquor 
thirst.  Freed!  If  freed  in  truth,  why  should  the  sight  and 
smell  even  of  Brooker's  sticky  loquat  brandy  have  set  the  long 
denied  palate  craving?  Saxham  put  that  question  fror?.  hiru 
with  both  hands. 

And  then  he  frowned,  thinking  of  that  adaptable  instrument 
that  had  thrummed  an  accompaniment  to  the  arias  of  the  Opera 
soprano  as  to  the  Society  drawing-room  duets,  sung  with  the 
frisky  married  ladies  who  liked  nice  boys,  and  had  made 
tinkling  music  for  the  twinkling  small  feet,  and  the  strident 
voice  of  Lessie  Lavigne  of  the  Jollity  Theatre,  and  now  must 
serenade  outside  a  Convent  close  in  beleaguered  Gueldersdorp, 
where  the  whitest  of  maiden  lilies  bloomed,  tall  and  pure  and 


248  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

slender  and  unharmed,  in  a  raging  tempest  of  fire  and  steel 
and  lead. 

XXXI 

PRAY  give  a  thought  to  the  spy,  Walt  Slabbert,  languishing  in 
durance  vile  under  the  yellow  flag.  Several  times  the  first- 
class,  up-to-date,  effective  artillery  of  his  countrymen,  being 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  gaol,  had  caused  the  captive  to  bound 
like  the  proverbial  parched  pea,  and  to  curse  with  curses  not 
only  loud  but  fervent  the  indiscriminating  zeal  of  his  brother 
patriots. 

He  was,  though  lost,  to  sight  behind  the  walls  of  what 
Emigration  Jane  designated  the  jug,  still  fondly  dear  to  one 
whose  pliant  affections,  rudely  disentangled  by  the  hand  of 
perfidy  from  the  person  of  That  There  Green,  had  twined 
vigorously  about  the  slouching  person  of  the  young  Boer. 
Letters  were  received,  but  not  forwarded  to  suspects  enjoying 
the  hospitality  of  the  Government,  so  communication  with  the 
object  of  her  dreams  was  painfully  impossible.  Stratagems 
were  not  successful.  A  passionate  missive  concealed  in  a 
plum-pudding — before  it  was  put  on  to  boil —  had  become  in- 
corporated with  the  individuality  of  a  prison  official,  who  ob- 
jected on  principle  to  waste. 

On  Sundays,  when  you  could  go  out  without  your  'art  in 
your  mouth  on  account  of  them  'orful  shellses,  a  fair  female 
form  in  a  large  and  flamboyant  hat,  whose  imitation  ostridge 
tips  were  now  mere  bundles  of  quill  shavings,  and  whose 
flowers  were  as  wilted  as  tht  other  blossoms  of  her  heart, 
wandered  disconsolately  round  her  Walt's  place  of  bondage, 
waving  a  lily  hand  on  the  chance  of  being  seen  and  recognized. 
Tactics  productive  of  nothing  but  blown  kisses  on  the  part 
of  extra-susceptible  warders,  and  one  or  two  troopers  of  the 
B.S.A.P.,  who  ought  to  have  known  better.  These  advances 
Walt's  bereaved  betrothed  rejected  with  ringing  sniffs  of 
scorn,  yet,  of  such  conflicting  elements  is  the  feminine  heart 
composed,  found  them  strangely  solacing. 

She  'ad  'ad  'er  month's  notice  from  Sister  Tobias's  upon  the 
morning  following  the  night  of  the  tragedy,  another  score  to 
the  account  of  the  traitor  Keyse.  Arriving  unseemly  late,  and 
in  an  agitated  state  of  mind,  and  could  you  wonder,  after  her 
young  man  had  been  pinched  and  took  away?  She  had 
mechanically  accounted  for  her  late  return  in  the  well-worn 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  249 

formula  of  Kentish  Town,  explaining  to  the  surprised  Sisters 
that  there  'ad  bin  a  Haccident  on  the  Underground  between 
the  Edgeware  Road  and  'Ammersmiff,  an'  that  her  sister 
Hemmaline  had  bin  took  bad  in  consequence,  the  second  being 
looked  for  at  the  month's  end;  and  to  leave  that  pore  dear  in 
that  state — her  'usband  being  at  his  Social  Club— was  more 
than  Emigration  Jane  'ad  'ad  the  'art  to  do.  She  received  her 
dismissal  to  bed,  and  the  advice  to  examine  her  conscience  care- 
fully, before  retiring  with  defiance,  culminating  in  an  attack 
of  whooping  hysteria.  Nor  was  she  other  than  wildly  elated 
at  the  knowledge  that  nobody  slept  in  the  Convent  that  night, 
until  she  had  run  down.  The  character  supplied  by  Sister 
Tobias  to  her  next  employer  specified  terminological  inexacti- 
tude among  her  failings,  combined  with  lack  of  emotional  self- 
control,  but  laid  stress  on  an  affectionate  disposition,  and  a 
tendency  to  intermittent  attacks  of  hard  work. 

She  was  now  with  her  new  mistress  and  the  kids,  pigging — 
you  couldn't  call  it  nothink  else,  not  to  be  truthful  you  couldn't 
— at  the  Women's  Laager,  along  of  them  there  dirty  Dutch 
frows.  She  refrained  from  too  candid  criticism  of  her  Walt's 
countrywomen,  but  it  was  proper  'ard  all  the  same  not  to 
call  crock  and  muck  by  their  right  names. 

Languishing  in  seclusion,  week  and  week  about,  cooking  scant 
meals  of  their  Commissariat  beef  moistened  with  gravy,  made 
from  them  patent  packets  of  Consecrated  Soup,  can  you  won- 
der that  her  burden  of  bitterness  against  W.  Keyse,  author  of 
all  her  wrongs,  instrument  most  actively  potential  in  the  jug- 
ging of  her  young  man,  bulked  larger  every  day?  She  was  not 
one  to  'ave  the  world's  'eel  upon  'er  without  turning  like  a 
worm.  No  Fear,  and  Chance  it.  Her  bosom  heaved  under 
the  soiled  two-and-elevenpenny  peek-a-boo  "  blowze  "  as  she 
registered  her  vow.  That  there  Keyse — the  conduct  of  the 
faithless  Mr.  Green  appeared  almost  blonde  in  complexion  be- 
side the  suave  villainy  of  the  other — That  There  Keyse  should 
Rue  the  Day! 

How  to  make  him  ? — that  was  the  question.  Then  came  the 
dazzling  flash  of  inspiration — but  not  until  they  had  met 
again. 

She  was  circulating  hungry-hearted  about  the  brick-built 
case  that  held  her  jewel — the  man  who  had  held  out  that  vista 
of  a  home,  and  called  her  his  good  little  Boer-wife  to  be.  We 
know  it  was  a  mere  bait  designed  to  allure  and  dazzle — the 
Boer  spy  had  caught  many  women  with  it  before.  Do  you 


250  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

despise  her  and  those  others  for  the  predominance  of  the 
primal  instinct,  the  sacred  passion  for  the  inviolate  hearth? 
Not  so  much  they  yearned  for  the  man  as  for  the  roof-tree, 
whose  roots  are  twined  about  the  heart-strings  of  the  natural 
woman,  the  spreading  rafter-branches  of  which  shelter  little 
downy  heads. 

She  encountered  the  traitor,  I  say,  and  her  eyes  darted  fire 
beneath  a  bristling  palisade  of  iron  curling-pins.  She  had  not 
the  heart  these  days  to  free  her  imprisoned  tresses.  The  villain 
had  the  perishing  nerve  to  accost  her,  jauntily  touching  the 
smasher  hat. 

'  'Day,  Miss!     'Aven't  seen  you  since  when  I  can't  think." 

She  replied  with  a  ringing  sniff  and  a  glance  of  infinite  scorn 
that  she  would  trouble  him  not  to  think;  and  that  she  regarded 
low,  interfering,  vulgar  fellows  as  the  dirt  under  her  feet. 
So  there! 

"  Cr'r !  "  He  was  took  aback,  but  not  to  the  extent  of 
taking  hisself  off,  which  he  ought  to.  "  You're  fair  mad  with 
me,  an'  no  mistyke."  His  pale  eyes  were  unmistakably  good- 
natured  ;  the  loss  of  the  yellow  freckles,  swamped  in  a  fine, 
uniform,  brilliant  hue,  was  an  improvement,  she  could  not  help 
thinking.  "  But  I  only  did  my  duty,  Miss,  same  as  another 
chap  would  have  'ad  to.  Look  'ere!  Come  and  'ave  a  split 
gingerade." 

The  delicious  beverage  was  three  shillings  the  bottle.  She 
frowned,  but  hesitated.  He  persisted ;  she  ended  by  giving  in. 
Weeks  and  weeks  since  she  had  walked  with  a  young  man ! 
The  Dutchman's  saloon  was  closed  and  barricaded ;  its  owner 
had  made  tracks  to  his  Transvaal  friends  at  the  beginning  of 
the  siege.  But  the  aromatic  beer-cellar  was  one  of  the  places 
open.  They  went  in  there.  Oh!  the  deliciousness  of  that 
first  sip  of  the  stinging,  fizzling  beverage !  He  lifted  his  glass 
in  the  way  that  she  remembered,  and  drank  a  toast. 

"  'Er  'ealth !  If  you  knew  how  I  bin  wantin'  to  git  word 
of  'er!  She's  well,  isn't  she,  Miss?  Lumme!  the  Fair  Old 
Time  I  got  when  I  see  the  Convent  standin'  empty.  .  .  . 
Gone  into  laager  near  the  Railway  Works  now,  you  'ave,  I 
know.  Safe,  if  not  stric'ly  luxurious.  But — I  git  the  Regu- 
lar Hump  when  I  think  of — of  a  Angel  like  'Er  'avin'  to  live 
an  'eat  an'  sleep  in  a — a — in  a  bloomin'  rabbit-'ole."  He 
sighed  as  he  wiped  the  stinging  froth  from  his  upper  lip. 

"  Pity  you  can't  tell  'er  so !  "  The  sarcasm  would  have  iti 
way,  out  ii  failed  of  his  great  simplicity. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  251 

"  That's  why  I  bin  lookin'  out  for  you."  He  blushed 
through  the  brick-dust  hue  as  he  extract  a  fatigued-looking 
letter  from  a  baggy  breast-pocket  in  which  h  had  sojourned  in 
company  with  a  tobacco-pouch,  a  pipe  which  must  not  be 
smoked  in  the  trenches  if  a  man  would  prefer  to  do  without  a 
bullet  through  his  brain,  a  handful  of  screws  not  innocent  of 
lubricating  medium,  a  clasp-knife,  a  flat  tin  box  of  carbolized, 
vaseline,  a  First-Aid  bandage,  and  a  ration  of  bread  and  cheese 
wrapped  in  old  newspaper.  The  bread  was  getting  deplorable, 
for  even  the  dusty  seconds  flour  was  fast  dribbling  out. 

"You'll  give  'er  this,  won't  you,  Miss,  and  tell  her  I  bin 
thinkin'  of  'er  night  and  d'y?  Fair  live  in  the  trenches  now; 
and  when  I  do  git  strollin'  round  the  stad,  blimme  if  I  ever 
see  'er.  But  she's  there — an  'ere's  a  ticker  beatin  'true  to  'er." 
He  rapped  a  little  awkwardly  upon  the  bulking  left  breast- 
pocket, "  To  the  bloomin'  end,  wotever  it  may  be!  " 

"Oh,  you— silly,  you!" 

She  found  him  ridiculous  and  tragic,  and  so  touching  all  at 
once  that  the  gibe  ended  in  a  sob.  It  was  not  the  stinging 
effervescence  of  the  gingerade  that  made  her  choke  and  brought 
the  smarting  tears  to  her  eyes.  It  was  envy  of  that  other 
girl.  And  then  she  noticed,  under  his  left  eye,  a  tiny  scar, 
and  she  knew  how  he  came  by  it,  and  remembered  what  she 
owed  him,  and  saw  that  the  chance,  had  come  for  her  revenge. 
She  could  pierce  the  heart  beating  under  the  khaki  breast- 
pocket to  its  very  core  with  three  words  as  easily  as  she  had 
jabbed  his  face  with  her  hatpin  on  that  never-to-be-forgotten 
night.  She  would  tell  him  that  the  lady  of  his  love  had  gone 
up  to  Johannesburg  weeks  and  weeks  ago.  Oh,  but  it  would 
be  sweet  to  see  the  duped  lover's  face!  She  would  give  him 
a  bit  of  her  mind,  too — perhaps  tear  up  the  letter. 

Then  flashed  across  the  murky-black  night  of  her  stormy 
[mind  the  forked-lightning  inspiration  of  what  the  real  revenge 
would  be.  To  take  his  letter — write  him  another  back,  and 
yet  others,  fool  him  to  the  top  of  his  bent,  and  presently  tell 
him,  tossing  at  his  feet  a  sheaf  of  billets.  "  And  serve  yer 
glad — and  no  more  than  your  deservings.  Who  put  away  my 
Walt?" 

She  accepted  the  letter,  only  permitting  herself  one  scorn- 
ful sniff,  and  put  the  missive  in  her  pocket.  Next  day  John 
Tow,  the  Chinaman,  serenely  fatalistic,  smilingly  perpendicular 
in  felt-soled  shoes,  amidst  zipping  bullets,  brought  to  the  trench 
a  reply  signed  "  Fare  'Air." 


252  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

The  writer  Toke  the  Libberty  of  Hopeing  W.  Keyse  was 
as  it  Left  her  at  present.  She  was  Mutch  obblig  for  his  Dear 
Leter  Witch  it  'ad  made  her  Hapey  to  Know  a  Brave  Man 
fiteing  for  her  Saik. 

"  Cr'r !"  ejaculated  W.  Keyse,  below  his  breath.  His 

face  was  radiant  as  he  read.  Her  spelling  was  a  bit  off,  it 
(Came  to  him  to  own  in  cooler  blood.  But — Cr'rips! — to  be 
;called  a  brave  man  by  the  owner  of  the  maddening  blue  eyes, 
and  that  great  thick  golden  pigtail.  The  letter  went  on: 

"  Dear  mr.  Keyse  yu  will  be  Please  to  Kno  Jane  is  Sutch  a 
Cumfut  to  me  in  Trubel.  As  it  is  Selldom  Fathful  Frends 
are  To  be  Fownd  But  Jane  is  trew  as  Stele  &  Cold  be  Trustid 
with  Ibs  &  Ibs.  no  More  at  Preasent  from  yr  afexn  Swetart. 

X  X  X  X  "  FARE  'Am." 

His  senses  reeled,  as  under  pretence  of  making  a  sneeze  he 
pressed  his  burning  lips  to  those  osculatory  crosses.  He  wrote 
her  a  flaming  answer,  begging  a  Sunday  rendezvous.  She  ap- 
pointed a  place  and  an  hour.  He  went  there  on  the  wings 
of  love,  but  nobody  turned  up  except  the  Jane  who  could  be 
trusted  with  pounds  and  pounds. 

She  hurried  to  him  trembling  and  quite  pale,  her  blue  eyes 
— he  had  never  noticed  that  they  were  blue  and  really  pretty 
— wide  with  fright  under  her  yellow  fringe  of  curls  newly 
released  from  steely  fetters.  Her  lips  were  apart,  but  he 
failed  to  observe  that  the  teeth  they  revealed  were  creditably 
white;  her  cotton-gloved  hand  repressed  her  fluttering  heart, 
but  he  did  not  see  its  tumultuous  throbbing.  He  gulped  as  he 
said,  with  a  fallen  jaw  and  a  look  of  abject  misery  that  pierced 
, her  to  the  quick: 

"  She — couldn't  come,   then  ?  " 

"No,  pore  deer!"  gasped  the  comfort  in  trouble,  casting 
about  for  something  to  tell  him.  She  had  made  up  her  mind 
as  she  came  along;  she  would  have  her  revenge  there  and  then, 
and  chance  it.  Something  kept  her  from  laying  the  candle- 
flame  to  the  time-fuse.  She  did  not  know  what  it  was  yet. 
But,  oh!  the  sharp  look  of  terror  in  the  thin,  eager  face  pierced 
her  through  and  through. 

"  My  Gawd !  She's  not  bin  killed  ?  "  he  cried.  "  Don't  tell 
me  she's  bin " 

"  Lor',  gracious  goodness,  no!  What  will  you  think  of 
next?"  She  lied,  rallying  him,  with  jealousy  eating  at  her 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  253 

own  poor  heart.  "  Can't  git  away,  that's  all.  Them  Sisters 
are  so  precious  sharp.  An' — '  Go  an'  tell  'im,'  she  says,  '  'e'll 
'ave  to  put  up  with  you  this  once.  An'  you'll  come  back  an' 
tell  me  all  about,  'im !  ' : 

He  swallowed  the  bait,  and  her  spirits  revived.  Emigration 
Jane,  if  not  the  rose,  lived  with  it.  Strictly  speaking,  they 
spent  a  pleasant  Sunday,  though  when  he  found  himself  for- 
getting the  absent  one,  he  pulled  himself  sharply  up.  He  saw 
net  part  of  the  way  home;  more  she  would  not  allow. 

"  And — and  " — she  whispered  at  their  parting,  her  eyes 
avoiding  his — "  if  she  can't  git  out  next  Sunday — an*  it's  a 
chance  whether  she  does,  that  Sister  Tobias  being  such  a  watch- 
ful old  cat — would  you  like  to  'ave  me  meet  you  an'  tell  you  all 
about  'er?" 

W.  Keyse  assented,  even  eagerly,  and  so  it  began.  Behold 
the  poor  deceiver  drinking  perilous  joys,  and  learning  to  shud- 
der at  the  thought  of  discovery.  Think  of  her  cherishing  his 
letters,  those  passionate  epistles  addressed  to  the  owner  of  the 
golden  pigtail. 

Think  of  her  pouring  out  her  poor  full  heart  in  those 
wildly-spelt  missives  that  found  their  way  to  him,  and  be  a 
little  pitiful. 

She  did  not  thirst  for  that  revenge  now.  But,  oh!  the  day 
would  come  when  he  would  find  out  and  have  his,  in  casting 
her  off,  with  what  contempt  and  loathing  of  her  treachery  she 
wept  at  night  to  dream  of.  This  feeling,  that  lifted  you  to 
Heaven  one  instant,  and  cast  you  down  to  Hell  the  next,  was 
Love.  Passion  for  the  Mari,  not  yearning  for  the  hearth- 
place,  and  the  sheltering  roof,  and  the  security  of  marriage. 

She  left  off  walking  round  the  gaol — indeed,  rather  avoided 
the  vicinity  of  the  casket  that  for  her  had  once  held  a  treasure. 
What  would  the  Slabbert  think  of  his  little  Boer-wife  that  was 
to  have  been  ?  What  would  he  say  and  do  when  they  let  him 
out?  She  took  to  losing  breath  and  colour  at  the  sound  of 
a  heavy  step  behind  her,  and  would  shrink  close  to  the  martial 
figure  of  W.  Keyse  when  any  hulking  form  distantly  re- 
sembling th'e  Boer's  loomed  up  in  the  distance. 

Oh,  shame  on  her,  the  doubly  false!  But: — but — she  had 
never  been  so  orful  'appy.  Oh,  what  a  queer  thing  was  Love! 
If  only But  never,  never  would  he.  She  was  imitation. 

There  came  a  moment  when  W.  Keyse  swerved  from  the 
path  of  single-hearted  devotion  to  the  unseen  but  ever-present 
wearer  of  the  golden  pigtail. 


254  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

As  Christmas  drew  near,  and  Gueldersdorp,  not  yet  sensible 
of  the  belly-pinch  of  famine,  sought  to  relieve  its  tense 
muscles  and  weary  brains  by  getting  up  an  entertainment  here 
and  there,  W.  Keyse  escorted  his  beloved — by  proxy,  as  usual 
— to  a  Sunday  smoking-concert,  given  in  a  cleared-out  Army 
Service  Stores  shed,  lent,  by  Imperial  Government  to  the  pro- 
yTnoters  of  the  entertainment. 

Oh,  the  first  delicious  sniff  of  an  atmosphere  tinged  with 
paint  and  acetylene  from  the  stage-battens  and  footlights,  and 
altogether  so  flavoured  with  crowded  humanity  of  various 
nationalities  as  to  be  strongly  reminiscent  of  the  lower  troop- 
deck  with  the  hatches  battened  down !  The  excess  of  brillancy 
which  must  not  stream  from  the  windows  had  had  to  be  shut- 
tered in,  and  a  tarpaulin  drawn  over  the  skylight,  in  case  the 
gunners  of  Meisje  should  be  tempted  to  rouse  the  monster 
from  her  Sabbath  quiet,  and  send  in  a  ninety-three-pound 
shell  to  break  up  an  orgie  of  godless  Englanders.  But  the 
stuffiness  made  it  all  the  snugger.  You  could  fancy  yourself 
in  the  pit  of  the  Theaytre  of  Varieties,  'Oxton,  or  perched  up 
close  to  the  blue-starred  ceiling-dome  of  the  Pavilion,  Mile 
End,  on  a  Saturday  night,  when  every  gentleman  sits  in  shirt- 
sleeves, with  his  arm  round  the  waist  of  a  lady,  and  the  faggots 
and  sausage-rolls  and  stone-gingers  are  going  off  like  smoke, 
and  the  orange-peel  rains  from  the  upper  circle  back-benches, 
and  the  nutcracking  runs  up  and  down  the  packed  rows  like 
the  snapping  of  the  breech-blocks  in  the  trenches  when  the 
fire  is  hottest.  .  .  . 

Ah!     That  brought  one  back  to  Gueldersdorp  at  once. 

Meanwhile,  a  pale  green  canvas  railway-truck  cover,  marked 
in  black,  "  Light  Goods — Destructible,"  served  as  a  drop- 
curtain.  Another,  upon  which  the  interior  of  an  impossible 
palace  had  been  delineated  in  a  bewildering  perspective  of  red 
and  blue  and  yellow  paint-smudges,  served  as  a  general  back- 
scene  for  the  performance. 

The  orchestra  piano  had  been  wounded  by  shell-fire,  and 
had  a  leg  in  splints.  Many  members  of  the  crowded  audience 
were  in  strapping  and  bandages.  Drink  did  not  flow  plenti- 
fully, but  there  was  something  to  wet  your  whistle  with,  and 
the  tobacco-cloud  that  hung  above  the  trestle-benches,  packed 
with  black  and  yellow  faces,  as  well  as  brown  and  white,  could 
have  been  cut  with  a  knife,  if  you  had  wanted  to. 

It  was  a  long,  rambling  programme,  scrawled  in  huge,  black- 
paint  characters  on  a  white-planed  board,  hung  where  every- 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  255 

one  could  read  it.  There  were  comic  songs  and  Christy 
Minstrel  choruses  by  people  who  had  developed  vocal  talent 
for  this  occasion  only,  and  a  screaming  display  of  conjuring 
tricks  by  an  amateur  of  legerdemain  who  had  forgotten  the 
art,  if  ever  he  had  mastered  it.  At  every  new  mistake  or 
blunder,  and  with  each  fresh  change  of  expression  on  the  en- 
tertainer's streaky  face,  conveying  the  idea  of  his  being  under 
the  influence  of  a  bad  dream,  and  hoping  to  wake  up  in  his 
own  quarters  by-and-by,  to  find  that  he  had  never  really  under- 
taken to  make  a  pudding  in  a  hat,  and  smash  a  gentleman's 
watch  and  produce  it  intact  from  some  unexpected  place  of  con- 
cealment, the  spectators  rocked  and  roared.  Then  there  was 
a  Pantomimic  Interlude,  with  a  great  deal  of  genuine  knock- 
about, and,  the  crowning  item  of  the  entertainment,  a  comic 
song  and  stump-speech,  announced  to  be  given  by  The 
Anonymous  Mammoth  Comique — an  incognito  not  dimly 
suspected  to  conceal  the  identity  of  the  Chief  himself,  being 
delayed  by  the  Master's  character  top-hat — a  fondly  cherished 
property  of  the  Stiggins  brand — and  the  cabbage  umbrella  that 
went  with  it,  having  been  accidentally  left  behind  at  the 
Mammoth's  hotel,  the  Master  of  the  Revels,  still  distinguished 
by  the  lug-sail  collar  and  shiny  burnt-cork  complexion  of  the 
corner-man,  was  sent  to  the  front  to  ask  if  any  lady  or  gentle- 
man in  the  audience  would  kindly  oblige  a  ten-minute 
turn? 

"All  right,  Mister!" 

A  soiled  cotton  glove  waved,  a  flowery  hat  nodded  to  the 
appeal  from  behind  the  acetylene  footlights.  The  faces  in  the 
front  rows  of  seats,  brick-dust  and  ginger-head  and  cigar- 
browned  European,  African  countenances  with  rolling  eyes  and 
shining  teeth;  and  here  and  there  the  impassive,  almond-eyed, 
yellow  mask  of  the  Asiatic,  slewed  round  as  Emigration  Jane 
rose  up  in  the  place  beside  W.  Keyse,  a  little  pale,  and  with 
damp  patches  in  the  palms  of  the  washed  white  cotton  gloves, 
as  she  said:  If  the  gentleman  pleased,  she  could  sing — just,  a 
little! 

No,  thank  you!  She  wasn't  afryde,  not  she;  they  was  all 
friends  there.  And  do  'er  best  she  would.  She  took  off  the 
big  flowery  hat  quite  calmly,  giving  it  to  W.  Keyse  to  keep. 
The  panic  came  on  later,  when  the  Gladstone-collared,  burnt- 
corked  Master  of  the  Ceremonies  was  gallantly  helping  her  up 
the  short  side-ladder,  and  culminated  when  he  retreated,  and 
left  her  there,  standing  on  the  platform  in  the  bewildering 


256  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

glare  of  the  acetylene  foot-lights,  a  little,  rather  slight  and  flat- 
chested  figure  of  a  girl,  blue-eyed  and  yellow-haired,  in  a 
washed-out  flowery  "  blowze,"  and  a  voylet  delaine  skirt  that 
had  lost  its  pristine  beauty,  and  showed  faded  and  shabby 
in  the  yellow  gas-flare. 

Oh!  'owever  'ad  she  dared?  That  dazzling  sea  of  faces, 
with  the  eyes  all  fixed  on  her,  was  terrifying.  A  big  lump 
grew  in  her  throat,  and  the  crowded  benches  tilted,  and  the 
flaming  lights  leaped  to  the  roof  as  the 'helpless,  timid  tears 
Wiled  into  her  blue  eyes. 

And  then  the  miracle  happened. 

W.  Keyse  sat  on  a  back-bench,  the  thin  Cockney  face  a  little 
raised  above  the  others,  because  he  had  slipped  a  rolled-up 
overcoat,  under  him,  pretending  that  it  was  to  get  it  out  of  the 
way,  you  understand.  Always  very  sensitive  about  his  short- 
ness, W.  Keyse.  And  she  saw  his  face,  as  plain  as  you  please, 
and  with  a  look  in  the  pale,  eager  eyes,  that  for  once  was  for 
Emigration  Jane,  her  very  own  self,  and  not  for  That  There 
Other  One.  She  knew  in  that  moment  of  revelation  that  she 
had  always  been  jealous.  Oh,  wasn't,  it  strynge?  Her  heart 
surged  out  to  W.  Keyse  across  the  gulf  of  crowded  faces.  And 
her  eyes  had  in  them,  all  at  once,  the  look  that  is  born  of 
Love. 

Ah!  who  can  mistake  it?  It  begets  a  solitude  in  a  vast 
thronged  assemblage  for  you  and  for  me.  It  sends  its  silent, 
wordless,  eloquent,  message  thrilling  to  the  heart  of  the  Be- 
loved, and  wins  its  passionate  answer  back.  Ah!  who  can  err 
about  the  look  of  Love? 

She  drew  a  deep  breath  that  was  her  longing  sigh  for  him, 
infinitely  dear,  and  never  to  belong  to  her,  and  began  her  song. 
She  sang  it  quite  simply  and  naturally,  in  an  untutored  but 
sweet  and  plaintive  voice,  and  with  the  Cockney  accent  that 
spoke  of  Home  to  nearly  all  that  heard.  And  her  eyes  never 
moved  from  his  face  as  she  sang  it. 

It  was,  I  dare  say,  a  foolish,  trivial  thing.  But  the  air  was 
pretty,  and  the  words  were  simple,  and  it  had  a  haunting  re- 
frain. To  this  effect,  that  the  world  is  a  big  place  and  a  hard 
place,  with  scant  measure  of  joy  in  it,  for  you  or  for  me. 
Bitter  herbs  grow  side  by  side  with  the  flowers  in  our  Earth 
gardens.  Salt  tears  mingle  w<ith  our  laughter;  Night  comes 
down  in  blotting  darkness — perhaps  in  driving  storm — at  the 
close  of  every  short,  bright  day  of  sunshine.  But  Life  gone 
by,  its  hopes  and  fears  and  sorrows  laid  with  our  once-beating 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  257 

hearts  in  the  good  grey  dust  to  rest,  I  shall  meet  with  you 
again,  in  the  Land  where  dreams  come  true. 

The  Land  Where  Dreams  Come  True.  That  was  the  title 
of  the  song  and  its  refrain,  and  somehow  it  caught  the  listeners 
by  the  heart-strings,  making  the  women  sob  aloud,  and  wring- 
ing bright  sudden  drops  from  the  bold  eyes  of  rough,  strong, 
hardy  men.  You  are  to  remember  how  the  people  stood:  that 
scarcely  one  was  there  that  had  not  lost  brother  or  sister, 
mother  or  husband,  child  or  friend  or  comrade  since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  siege;  and  thus  the  touch  of  Nature  made  itself 
felt,  and  the  simple  pathos  went  home  to  the  sore  quick.  They 
sang  the  refrain  with  her,  fervently,  and  when  the  song  was 
done,  they  sat.  in  touched  silence  but  one  moment — and  then  the 
applause  came  down.  As  it  fell  upon  her  like  a  wall,  she 
screamed  in  terror,  and  ran  away  behind  the  scene,  and  was 
found  by  W.  Keyse  a  minute  later,  sobbing  hysterically,  with 
her  head  jammed  into  an  angle  of  the  wall  of  unplastered 
brick. 

None  saw.  He  put  his  arms  manfully  about  the  waist- 
line of  the  flowery  blouse. 

"  Oh,  let  me  go !  Oh,  what  a  wicked,  wicked  girl  I've 
bin !  Oh,  it's  all  come  over  me  a-sudden,  like  a  flood !  Don't 
touch  me — I'm  not  good  enough!  Oh!  how  can  you,  can 
you?" 

She  sobbed,  and  then  W.  Keyse  had  kissed  her.  He  did 
not  get  another  word  of  her  that  night.  She  parted  from 
him  in  tingling  silence.  His  own  uneasy  sense  of  faithlessness 
to  One  immeasurably  beloved,  to  whom  he  had  pledged  in- 
violable and  eternal  fidelity,  nearly  prompted  him  to  ask  her 
not.  to  up  and  tell.  But  he  manfully  kept  silence. 

The  worst  of  one  kiss  of  that  kind  is  that  it  begets  the 
desire  for  others  like  it.  She  had  turned  her  mouth  to  his  in 
that  whirling,  breathless  moment,  and  it  was  small,  and  warm, 
and  clung.  He  tried  to  shake  off  the  remembrance,  but  it 
haunted  persistently. 

He  knew  he  had  behaved  like  a  regular  beast — a  low  cur, 
in  fact.  To  kiss  one  girl  and  mean  it  for  another  was,  in 
the  Keysian  Code  of  morals,  to  be  guilty  of  a  baseness.  The 
worst  of  it  was  that  he  knew,  given  the  chance,  he  would  do 
the  same  thing  again. 

For  he  could  not  shake  off  the  memory.  The  blushing 
face,  wetted  with  streaming  tears  from  the  wide  bright  eyes 
that  pleaded  so,  They  were  blue,  too,  and  the  fringe  above 


258  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

them  might,  by  a  not  too  exhausting  stretch  of  the  imagina- 
tion, be  termed  golden.  He  heard  her  voice  crying  to  him, 
"  How  can  you,  can  you  ?  "  And  he  trembled  at  the  thought 
of  the  mouth  that  kissed  and  clung. 

He  had  known  bought,  kisses,  of  the  kind  that  brand  the 
lips  and  shame  the  buyer  as  the  seller.  Never  the  kiss  of 
Love,  until  now. 

And  now — was  any  other  worth  the  taking? 

"  Cr'ripps !  "  said  W.  Keyse.     "  Not  much ! " 


XXXII 

IT  was  Wednesday  again,  and  Saxham  came  riding  through 
the  embrasure  in  the  oblong  earthwork,  and  down  the  gravelly 
glacis  that  led  into  the  Women's  Laager.  An  obsequious 
Hindu,  in  an  unclean  shirt,  and  a  filthy  red  turban,  rose  up 
salaaming,  almost  under  his  horse's  feet,  and  took  the  bridle. 
He  dismounted  and  went  his  rounds. 

It  might  have  been  the  dry  bed  of  a  high-banked  placer-river, 
with  spare  lengths  of  steel  Railway  line  borne  across  from 
bank  to  bank,  covered  with  beams  and  sheets  of  corrugated 
iron  and  tarpaulins,  with  wide  chinks  to  let  in  the  much- 
needed  air  and  light.  A  line  of  living  waggons,  crowded 
with  women  and  children — English,  American,  Irish,  Dutch, 
and  half-caste — ran  down  the  centre  of  the  giant  trench.  In 
each  of  its  sloping  faces  a  row  of  dug-out  habitations  gave 
accommodation  to  twice  the  number  that  the  waggons  held. 
At  the  eastern  end  a  line  of  camp  cooking-places  had  been  ar- 
ranged in  military  fashion,  but  the  Dutchwomen's  little  coffee- 
pipkin-bearing  fires  of  dung  and  chips  burned  everywhere,  and 
possibly  they  did  something  towards  purifying  the  air.  For, 
to  be  frank,  it  vied  with  the  native  village  in  the  compound 
and  variegated  nature  of  its  smells,  without  the  African  murki- 
ness  of  odour  that  clings  to  the  vicinity  of  our  sable  brother. 
The  fat,  slatternly,  frankly  dirty  vrouws  had  not  the  remotest 
idea  of  sanitation ;  the  Germans  and  Irish,  blandly  or  doggedly 
impervious  to  savage  smells,  pursued  their  unsavoury  way  in 
defiance  of  the  smell's  necessity  for  hygienic  measures,  until 
the  majority  of  the  pallid,  untidy,  scared  Englishwomen,  the 
energetic  Americans,  and  the  sturdier  Afrikanders,  after  mak- 
ing what  headway  was  possible  against  the  ever-rising  tide  of 
filth,  had  yielded  to  the  lethargy  bred  of  despair  and  lack  of 


ONE    BRAVER  THING  259 

exercise,  and  ceased  to  strive.  A  few  worthy  of  honour,  still 
stoutly  battled  with  the  demon  of  Uncleanliness. 

But  the  first  April  rainfall  would  turn  the  dry  ditch  into  an 
open  sewer — a  vast  trough  of  muddy  water — in  which  draggled 
women  would  paddle  for  submerged  household  gods.  Many 
would  prefer  to  tramp  back  to  the  town  at  night  and  sleep  in 
their  own  shrapnel-riddled  homes.  But  the  majority  stayed, 
of  choice  or  of  necessity,  incubating  sickness  in  that  fetid  place 
where  nothing  would  thrive  but  fierce  social  and  political 
hatreds,  and  petty  grudges,  and  rankling  jealousies,  and  shriek- 
ing quarrels  that  burst  out  and  raged  a  hundred  times  in  a 
day. 

From  one  of  the  dug-out  refuges  Saxham  now  saw  Lynette 
Mildare  coming,  making  her  swift  way  between  the  knots  of 
frowsy  refugees,  the  negro  women-servants  squatting  over  the 
little  cooking-fires,  the  pallid  children  swarming  on  the  narrow 
pathways. 

"  Dr.  Saxham."  Her  cool  brown  holland  skirt  and  thin 
linen  blouse  hung  loosely  upon  her.  Her  face,  too,  had  grown 
thinner,  and  looked  tired.  But  the  eyes  were  no  longer  un- 
naturally dilated,  and  the  face  had  a  more  healthful  pallor. 
"  Mrs.  Greening  begged  me  to  look  out  for  you.  She  is  so 
anxious  about  Berta.  We  have  been  doing  everything  we  can, 
but  I  am  afraid  the  child  is  seriously  ill.  It  is  the  third 
shelter  from  the  end,  south  side."  She  pointed  out  the 
place. 

He  had  lifted  his  hat  with  his  short,  brusque  salute.  His 
vivid  eyes  wore  a  preoccupied  look,  his  mobile  nostrils  angrily 
sniffed  the  villainous  air. 

"  I'll  come  directly,  Miss  Mildare.  But — who  can  expect 
children  to  keep  healthy  under  conditions  as  insanitary  as 
these?" 

"  It  is — horrible !  "  Disgust  was  in  her  face.  "  But  many 
of  the  women  are  as  ignorant  as  the  Cape  boys,  and  they  and 
the  coolie  sweepers  won't  carry  away  refuse  any  more  unless 
they're  paid." 

"  You  are  sure  of  this?"     His  tone  was  curt  and  official. 

"  I  am  almost  certain,"  she  told  him.  "  I  have  heard  some 
of  the  women  complaining  that  the  charges  grew  higher  every 
day.  And,  when  I  asked  one  of  the  boys  why  he  did  not  do 
the  work  properly,  he  was — rude.  .  .  .  Oh,  don't  punish 
him!" 

He  had  not  said  a  word,  but  an  ominous  spark  had  darted 


260  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

from  his  blue  eye,  and  his  grim  jaws  had  clamped  ominously 
together. 

"  It  is  my  duty  to  put  down  insubordination,  and  chastise 
inefficiency  where  I  encounter  it.  May  I  ask  you  to  point 
out  the  fellow  who  behaved  insolently  ?  " 

She  said :  "  I — I  think  he  is  head  of  the  carting-gang.  A 
Kaffir  boy  they  call  Jim  Gubo." 

"  That  will  do,  thank  you,  Miss  Mildare.  You  are  not 
alone  here  ?  " 

Her  glad  smile  assured  him  of  that.  "  Oh,  no ;  I  am  with 
the  Mother.  I  go  everywhere  with  her,  and  I  think  I  am 
of  use.  I  am  not  at  all  afraid  of  sickness,  you  know,  or — the 
other  things." 

"  But  yet,"  Saxham  said,  "  you  must  be  careful  of  your 
health." 

"You  have  no  idea  how  tremendously  strong  I  am,"  she 
answered  him,  and  he  broke  into  laughter  in  spite  of  himself. 
She  looked  so  tender,  so  delicately  frail  a  creature  to  be  there 
m  that  malodorous  Gehenna,  ministering  to  the  wants  of  slat- 
ternly vrouws  and  stalwart,  down-at-heel  Irishwomen.  His 
smile  emboldened  her  to  say:  "  I  did  not  thank  you  the  other 
day,  after  all." 

"  The  Krupp  shell  came  along  and  changed  the  subject  of 
the  conversation."  He  added :  "  Were  you  alarmed  ?  You 
had  rather  an  escape." 

"  I  was  with  her" 

"  You  love  her  very  dearly?  "  The  words  had  escaped  him 
unconsciously.  They  were  his  spoken  thought.  She  flushed, 
and  said  with  a  thrill  of  tenderness  in  her  clear,  girlish 
tones:  ,. 

"  More  dearly"  than  it  is  possible  to  say.  I  don't  believe 
'God  Himself  will  be  angry  with  me  that  I  have  always  seen 
His  face  and  Our  Blessed  Lady's  shining  through  hers  and 
beyond  it;  for  He  knows  as  no  one  else  can  ever  know  what 
she  has  been  since  they  brought  me  to  the  Convent  years  and 
years  ago." 

"They"  were  her  people,  presumably.  It  was  odd  — 
Saxham  supposed  it  the  outcome  of  that  Convent,  breeding — 
that  she  should  speak  of  God,  the  Deity  in  whom  she  believed, 
as  simply,  to  quote  Gladstone's  criticism  on  the  Journal  of 
Marie  Bachttistceff,  as  though  He  were  her  grandfather. 
Saxham  had  been  reared  by  a  pious  Welsh  mother,  but  there 
had  always  been  a  little  awkwardness  about  domestic  refer- 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  261 

ences  to  the  Deity.  In  times  of  sadness  or  bereavement  He 
was  frequently  referred  to.  But  always  in  a  deprecatory  tone. 

"  Your  family  is  not  Colonial  ?  "  he  asked. 

She  shook  her  lovely  red-brown  head. 

"  I— don't  know." 

"  Mildare  is  an  unusual  surname." 

"You  think  it  pretty?" 

He  thought  her  very  pretty  as  she  stood  there,  a  slender 
willowy  creature  with  the  golden  shadow  of  her  rough  straw- 
hat  intensifying  the  clear  amber  of  her  thoughtful  eyes. 

"  Very." 

She  looked  him  rh  the  eyes  and  smiled. 

"  So  did  I  when  the  Mother  gave  it  to  me.  I  think  it  be- 
longed to  someone  she  used  to  know,  and  her  mother  was 
Lynette.  So  they  baptized  me  Lynette  Mildare.  It  seems 
rather  strange  not  having  a  name  of  one's  own,  but  really  I 
never  had  one." 

"Never  had  one?" 

Saxham  echoed  her  half-consciously,  revelling  in  the  play  of 
light  and  shadow  over  the  delicate  face,  and  the  gleaming  as 
of  golden  dust  among  the  outer  edges  of  the  waves  of  red- 
brown  hair  drawn  carelessly  back  over  the  little  ears. 

"  Not  to  my  knowledge.  Of  course,  I  may  have  had  one 
once."  She  added,  as  he  looked  at  her  in  suddenly  roused 
surprise,  "  I  must  have  had  one  once."  She  was  looking  be- 
yond him  at  a  broad  ray  of  mored  white-hot  sunshine  that 
slanted  through  one  of  the  wide  openings  above,  and  cleft  the 
thick  atmosphere  of  the  crowded  place  like  a  fiery  sword.  "  I 
have  often  wondered  what  it  really  is,  and  whether  I  should 
like  it  if  I  heard  it.  To  exchange  Lynette  Mildare  for 
Eliza  Smith  .  .  .  that  would  be  horrible.  Don't  you  think 
,so?" 

Saxham  smiled.  "  I  think  you  are  joking,  and  that  a 
young  lady  who  can  do  so  under  the  present  circumstances 
deserves  to  be  commended." 

She  looked  at  him  full. 

"  I  am  not  joking."  Borne  by  a  waft  of  the  sickly  air  a 
downy  winged  seed  came  floating  towards  her,  a  frail  gossamer 
courier  coming  from  the  world  above  with  tidings  that.  Dame 
Nature,  in  spite  of  all  the  destruction  wreaked  by  men,  was 
carrying  on  her  business.  "  And — I  do  not  even  know  that 
I  am  a  young  lady.  See  there  " — she  blew  a  little  puff  of 
breath  at  the  moving  messenger,  and  it  wafted  away  upon  a 


262  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

new  air  pilgrimage,  and,  rising,  caught  a  stronger  current,  and 
soared  out  of  sight — "  that  is  me.  It  came  from  somewhere, 
and  it  is  going  somewhere.  That  is  all  I  know  about  myself; 
perhaps  as  much  as  I  shall  ever  know.  Why  do  you  look  so 
glad  ?  " 

His  lips  were  sealed.  The  throb  of  selfish  triumphant  exulta- 
tion came  of  the  belief  that  the  gulf  between  them  was  less 
wide  and  deep  than  he  had  thought  it.  A  wastrel  may  woo 
and  wed  a  waif,  surely,  without  many  questions  being  asked. 
And  then,  at  the  clear,  innocent  questioning  of  her  eyes,  rushed 
in  upon  him,  scalding,  the  memories  he  had  thrust  away.  He 
saw  the  Dop  Doctor  of  Gueldersdorp,  his  short,  daily  stint  of 
labour  done,  settling  down  to  drink  himself  into  hoggish 
oblivion  in  his  accustomed  corner  of  the  Dutchman's  liquor- 
saloon.  He  beheld  him,  his  purpose  accomplished,  sleeping 
stertorously,  spilled  out  like  the  very  dregs  of  manhood  in  the 
sawdust  of  that,  foul  place;  he  shuddered  as  the  bloated,  di- 
shevelled thing  roused  and  reeled  homewards,  trickling  at  the 
mouth,  as  the  clear  primrose  day  peeped  over  the  flat-topped 
eastern  hills.  And  he  sickened  at  the  thing  he  had 
been. 

"  I  felt  glad,"  he  lied,  with  looks  that  shunned  Lynette's, 
"  that  in  your  need  you  found  so  good  a  friend  as  the  Mother- 
Superior.  Yours  must  have  been  a  sorrowful,  lonely  child- 
hood." 

Her  own  vision  rose  before  her,  blotting  out  his  face.  She 
saw  the  little  kopje  with  the  grave  at  its  foot.  She  saw  a 
ragged  child  sitting  there  watching  for  the  earliest  flash  of 
dawn  or  the  solemn  folding  of  night's  wide  wing  over  the 
lonely  veld,  and  the  coming  of  the  great  white  stars. 

"  She  is  much,  much  more  than  friend.  She  is  the  Mother." 
Her  loyal  heart  was  in  her  face.  "  I  have  no  secrets  from 
her.  I  tell  her  everything." 

Was  that  deeper  flush  born  of  the  remembrance  of  a  secret 
unshared?  And  how  strange  that  every  change  of  colour  and 
expression  in  the  delicate  face  should  mean  so  much,  so  soon. 
He  said,  with  a  hungry  flash  of  the  gentian-blue  eyes: 

"Your  love  and  confidence  repay  her  richly." 

"  I  can  do  so  little."  There  was  an  anxious  fold  between 
the  slender  eyebrows.  "  Only  follow  her  and  be  near  her; 
only  look  on  as  she  spends  herself  for  others,  never  resting, 
never  sparing,  never  discouraged  or  cast  down."  Great,  tears 
brimmed  the  white,  brown-fringed  underlids,  and  ran  over. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  263 

"  And  she  only  laughs  at  me  at  night  when  I  cry  at  the  sight 
of  her  dear,  blistered  feet." 

"  You  will  be  able  to  laugh  with  her  when  this  is  over," 
Saxham  said  rather  clumsily. 

"Shall  I?  Perhaps."  Still,  that  fold  between  the  fine, 
delicate  eyebrows. 

"  You  have  seen  War,"  Saxham  went  on,  his  own  voice 
sounding  strange  to  him.  "  And  that  is  a  terrible  experience 
for  a  woman,  young  or  old,  but  you  will  be  the  richer  by  it 
in  the  end,  believe  me,  Miss  Mildare.  Richer  in  courage  and 
endurance  and  calmness  in  the  presence  of  danger  and  death, 
and  in  sympathy  with  the  pain  and  suffering  inevitable  under 
such  circumstances." 

"  Sympathy?  They  had  all  my  sympathy  before."  Her 
fair  throat  swelled  against  its  winding  band  of  moss-green 
velvet,  her  voice  rang,  her  eyes  flashed  golden  fire  under  the 
shadow  of  the  wide  straw  hat.  "  Do  you  think  it  needed  War 
to  teach  me  how  hideously  women  suffer.  How  they  have 
suffered  since  the  world  began,  and  how  they  will  suffer  until 
its  end,  unless  they  rise  up  in  revolt  once  for  all,  against  the 
wickedness  of  men." 

She  was  transformed  under  Saxham's  eyes.  The  slender 
virginal  body  increased  in  stature  and  proportions  as  he  gazed, 
and  what  obscure  emotions  seemed  striving  in  her  face. 

"  Look  at  them,"  she  said,  indicating  with  a  slight  reveal- 
ing gesture  the  swarming,  dowdy,  listless  occupants  of  the 
crowded  trench.  "  How  patient  they  are,  how  resigned  to  the 
dreadful  life  they  drag  on  here  from  day  to  day,  full  of  the 
horror  and  the  pain  and  the  suffering  that  you  say  is  inevitable. 
Why  should  it  be  inevitable?  Did  these  women,  who  are  the 
chief  .victims  of  it  and  the  greatest  losers  by  it,  choose  that 
there  should  be  War?  See  that,  poor  soul  with  the  rag  of 
crape  upon  her  hat,  who  sits  at  her  door  peeling  potatoes.  Did 
she  desire  it?  Did  that  Irish  girl  whose  young  husband  was 
shot  in  the  trenches  a  week  ago  and  whose  little  baby  died  of 
fever  this  morning — did  those  other  wemen  whose  homes  have 
been  wrecked  and  ruined,  whose  sons  and  husbands  and  fathers 
may  be  shot,  and  whose  children  may  sicken  with  the  same 
fever  before  night,  demand  of  their  Governments,  Imperial  or 
Republican,  that  there  should  be  War?  You  see  them  patient 
and  submissive  because  they  neither  realize  their  wrongs  or 
understand  their  rights.  But.  a  day  will  come  when  they  will 
understand,  and  then  " — her  eyes  grew  dreamy — "  I  do  not 


264  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

know  exactly  what  will  happen.  But  these  international  ques- 
tions, with  others,  will  be  decided  by  a  general  plebiscite,  the 
women  will  vote  as  well  as  the  men,  and  as  women  are  in  the 
majority,  and  every  woman  will  vote  for  Peace — how  can 
there  be  war  ?  " 

"You  are  an  advocate  of  Universal  Suffrage,  then?  You 
believe  that  there  must  be  absolute  sex  equality  before  the 
iworld  can  be — I  think  '  finally  regenerated  '  is  the  stock  phrase 
of  the  militant  apostle  of  Women's  Rights.  I  have  heard  this 
outcry  from  many  feminine  throats  in  London,  but  Guelders- 
dorp,"  said  Saxham  drily,  "  is  about  the  last  place  one  would 
expect  to  ring  with  it." 

"  Universal  Suffrage,  Sex  Equality,  Women's  Rights. 
.  .  ."  The  shibboleth  that  Saxham  quoted  was  evidently 
unfamilar  to  the  girl.  "  I  know " — there  was  a  sombre 
shadow  in  her  glance — "  what  Women's  Wrongs  are,  but  I  am 
not  very  well  informed  about  the  things  you  speak  of.  The 
Mother  tells  me  that,  there  are  many  well-educated  women  in 
London  and  Paris,  in  Berlin  and  in  New  York,  who  have  de- 
voted their  lives  to  the  study  of  such  questions.  Who  write 
and  speak  and  labour  to  teach  their  fellow-women  that  they 
have  only  to  band  themselves  together  to  be  powerful,  only 
to  be  powerful  to  be  feared,  only  to  will  it  to  be  free.  When 
I  am  twenty-four  I  mean  to  go  out  into  the  world  and  meet 
those  leader-women.  Some  of  them,  I  am  told,  have  suffered 
loss  and  ill-usage ;  some  of  them  have  even  undergone  imprison- 
ment for  the  sake  of  what  they  believe  and  teach.  Well,  I  will 
hear  what  they  have  to  say,  and  then  they  will  listen  to  me. 
For  until  my  work  is  done,  theirs  will  never  be  accomplished. 
Something  tells  me  that  with  a  most  certain  voice." 

"And  until  that  time  comes?"  said  Saxham. 

Her  eyes  grew  bright  again,  a  smile  played  about  her  ex- 
quisite lips. 

"  Until  that  time  comes  I  will  study  and  gather  more 
knowledge  and  capacity  to  fit  myself  for  a  struggle  with 
the  world." 

"  You  '  struggle  with  the  world  ' !  " 

Her  girlish  pride  in  her  high  purpose  being  sensitive,  she 
mistook  the  brusque  tenderness  in  Saxham's  face  and  voice  for 
irony. 

"  Yes.  Perhaps  you  may  not  believe  it,  but  I  know  a  great 
many  useful  things.  Latin  and  French  and  German  and 
Italian,  well  enough  to  teach  and  translate.  I  am  well 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  265 

grounded  in  History  and  Science  and  Mathematics.  I  can 
take  a  temperature  and  make  a  poultice,  or  sweep  a  room 
and  cook  a  dinner."  She  nodded  at  Saxham  with  a  little 
spark  of  laughter  underlying  the  sweet  earnestness  of  her  look. 
"  Also,  I  have  learned  book-keeping  and  typewriting,  short- 
hand. I  earn  enough  now,  by  bookbinding,  to  pay  for  nay 
clothes.  The  Mother  says  that  I  am  competent  to  earn  my 
living  anywhere,  and  to  teach  others  to  earn  theirs.  But  I 
am  not  to  begin  until  I  am  twenty-four.  That  is  our  agree- 
ment," 

Saxham  understood  the  fine  maternal  tact  that  never  set 
this  ardent  young  enthusiast  chafing  at  the  tightened  rein. 
But  he  said  roughly: 

"  The  Mother.  .  .  .  How  can  she  approve  your  joining  the 
ranks  of  the  Shrieking  Sisterhood  ?  " 

"  She  knows,"  Lynette  explained,  with  adorable  gravity, 
"  that  I  should  never  shriek." 

"  How  will  you  bear  parting  from  her  ?  And  how  will 
she  endure  parting  from  you?" 

The  girl's  mobile  lips  began  to  tremble.  The  luminous 
amber  eyes  were  dimmed  with  moisture  as  she  said: 

"  It  will  not  be  losing  me.  Nor  could  I  ever  bear  to  leave 
her  if  I  did  not  know  that  I  should  come  back.  But  I  shall 
come  back.  And  she  will  ask  me  what  I  have  done.  And 
I  shall  tell  her :  '  This,  and  this,  and  all  the  rest,  my  Mother 
for  the  love  of  you,  and  for  the  sake  of  those  others  who  once 
sat  in  darkness  and  the  Shadow  of  Death,  and  now  have  found 
the  Way  of  Peace.' ' 
'"And  those  others,  Beatrice?" 

Saxham  knew  now  the  secret  of  the  haunting  familiarity 
of  the  beautiful  girlish  face.  The  delicate  oval  outline,  the 
pale  wild-rose  colouring,  the  reddish-brown  of  the  fine,  glisten- 
ing tresses,  the  amber-hazel  of  the  wistful,  brilliant  eyes,  re- 
produced to  a  wonderful  degree  the  modelling  and  tinting  of 
the  wonderful  Guido  portrait,  the  white-draped  head  in  the 
Barberini  Gallery,  which,  in  defiance  of  Bertolotti  and  the 
Edinburgh  Review,  will  always  be  associated  with  the  name 
of  the  sorrowful-sweet  heroine  of  the  most  sombre  of  sex- 
tragedies. 

"Why  do  you  call  me  Beatrice?"  she  asked,  with  that 
sudden  darkening  of  those  luminous  eyes.  He  told  her: 

"  Because  you  are  like  the  Daughter  of  the  Cenci.  Shelley 
used  to  be  my  iavourite  amgng  the  English  poets,  and  when 


266  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

I  first  went  to  Rome,  years  ago,  the  first  thing  I  did  was  to 
hunt  up  the  portrait  in  the  Barberini  Palace  and  Gallery; 
and  it  is  marvellous.  No  reproduction  has  ever  done  justice 
to  it.  One  could  not  forget  it  if  one  tried." 

"  I  am  glad  I  am  like  Beatrice,"  she  said  slowly.  "  I  have 
always  loved  and  pitied  her.  I  pray  to  her  as  my  friend 
among  the  Blessed  Souls  in  Paradise,  and  she  always  hears. 
And  by-and-by  she  will  help  me  when  I  go  out  into  the 
world " 

"  To  look  for  those  others,"  Saxham  interpolated.  "  Tell 
me  who  they  are  ?  " 

She  looked  at  him,  and  for  an  instant,  the  virginal  veil  fell 
from  her,  and  there  was  a  strange  and  terrible  knowledge  in 
her  eyes. 

"They  are  women,  and  girls,  and  children,"  she  answered 
him.  "  They  are  the  most  unhappy  of  all  the  souls  that 
suffer  on  earth.  For  they  are  the  slaves  and  the  victims  and 
the  martyrs  of  the  unrelenting,  merciless,  dreadful  pleasures 
of  Man.  And  I  want  to  go  among  them  and  lift  them  up, 
and  say  to  them,  'You  are  free!'  And  one  day  I  will  do  it." 

There  was  a  dull  burning  under  Saxham's  opaque  skin, 
and  a  drumming  in  his  ears.  His  authority  and  knowledge 
fell  from  him  as  that  virginal  veil  had  fallen  from  her;  he 
stood  before  her  humbled  and  ashamed,  shunning  her  eyes, 
that,  penetrated  and  scathed  his  soul  as  the  eyes  of  an  aveng- 
ing Angel  might,  with  their  clear,  simple,  direct  estimate  of 
himself  and  his  fellow-men.  And  the  distance  between  them, 
that  had  seemed  to  be  lessening  as  they  talked,  spread  illimit- 
ably  vast;  a  dark,  sunless  plain,  bounded  by  a  livid  horizon, 
reflected  in  the  slimy  pools  of  foul  swamps  and  pestilential 
marshes,  where  poisonous  reptiles  bred  in  slimy,  writhing  knots, 
and  the  Eaters  of  Human  Flesh  lurked  under  the  tangled  shade 
of  the  jungles.  Less  vile  of  life,  even  in  his  degradation,  than 
many  men,  he  felt  himself  beside  this  girl  a  moral  leper. 

"Unclean,  unclean!" 

While  that  voice  yet  echoed  in  the  desert  places  of  his  soul, 
he  heard  her  saying: 

"  I  don't  know  why  I  should  talk  to  you  of  these  plans  and 
projects  of  mine.  I  never  have  spoken  of  them  yet  to  anyone 
except  the  Mother.  But — you  spoke  of  sympathy  with  those 
who  suffer.  I  think  you  have  it,  Dr.  Saxham,  and  that  you 
have  suffered  yourself.  It  is  in  your  face.  And — you  are  not 
to  suppose  that  I  believe  all  men  to  be " 

He  ended  for  her:    ."To  be  devouring  beasts.     No;  but  we 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  267 

are  bad  enough,  the  best  of  us,  if  the  truth  must  be  told.  And 
— I  have  suffered,  Miss  Mildare,  at  the  hands  of  men  and 
women,  and  through  the  unwritten  laws,  as  through  the  ac- 
cepted institutions  of  what  is  called  Society,  most  brutally.  I 
would  not  soil  and  scorch  your  ears  with  the  recital  of  my 
experiences,  for  all  that  a  miracle  could  give  me  back.  I  swear 
to  you  that  I  would  not." 

She  touched  the  little  ears  with  a  smile  that  had  pathos  in  it. 

"  They  have  heard  much  that  is  evil,  these  ears  of  mine." 

"And  the  evil  has  left  them  undefiled,"  said  Saxham. 

"Thank  you!" 

She  begged  him  again  not  to  forget  the  sick  child  at  Mrs. 
Greening's  shelter,  and  hurried  away,  keeping  her  face  from 
Saxham.  He  knew  that  there  was  no  hope  for  him,  that  there 
never  would  be  any.  And  he  loved  her — hungrily,  hopelessly 
loved  her.  Dear  innocent,  wise  enthusiast,  with  her  impossible 
scheme  for  cleansing  the  Augean  stable  of  this  world! 
Chivalrous  child-Quixote,  tilting  at  the  Black  Windmills, 
whose  sails  are  whirled  by  burning  blasts  from  Hell,  and  whose 
mill-stones  grind  the  souls  of  Eve's  lost  daughters  into  the 
dust  that  makes  the  devil's  daily  bread — how  should  the  Dop 
Doctor  of  Gueldersdorp  dare  to  love  her?  But  he  did  not 
cease  to,  for  all  the  height  of  his  self-knowledge  and  all  the 
depth  of  his  self-scorn. 

He  seemed  to  Lynette  a  strange,  harsh  man,  but  there  was 
something  in  him  that  won  her  liking.  He  had  a  stern  mouth, 
she  thought,  and  sorrowful,  angry  eyes,  with  that  thunder- 
cloud of  black,  lowering  eyebrow  above  them.  And  he  looked 
at  her  as  though  she  reminded  him  of  someone  he  knew.  Per- 
haps he  had  sisters,  though  they  could  hardly  be  very  young. 
Or  it  was  not  a  sister.  He  must,  be  quite  old — the  Mother 
had  thought  him  certainly  thirty-five — but  possibly  he  had  a 
young  wife  in  England — or  somewhere  else.  And  she  had 
spoken  to  him  of  her  great  project.  She  wondered  now  at  thaf 
impulse  of  confidence.  Perhaps  she  had  yielded  to  it  to  con 
vince  herself  that  her  enthusiasm  was  as  strong,  her  purpose 
still  as  clear,  as  ever,  in  the  mission  of  the  Future;  that  no 
gay,  youthful  reflection  had  ever  risen  up  of  late  days  between 
it  and  her  wistful  eyes  when  she  peeped  in.  The  remembered 
image  of  the  handsome  face  that  had  laughed,  even  as  Beau- 
vayse  had  declared: 

"  Even  if  I  die  to-day,  it  won't  end  there.  I  shall  think 
of  you,  and  long  for  you,  and  worship  you  w.herever  I  am." 

The  thought  oi  Beauvayse's  dying  was  horrible,  intolerable. 


268  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

His  name  came  after  the  Mother's  in  her  prayers.  He  had 
asked  her  to  keep  the  secret — his  and  hers — and  called  her  such 
exquisite,  impossible  things  for  promising  that  the  mere  re- 
membrance of  his  words  and  his  eyes  as  he  said  them  in  that 
low,  passionate,  eager  voice,  took  her  breath  deliciously. 

"Sweetest,  kindest,  loveliest.  .  .  ."  She  whispered  them  to 
herself  as  she  hurried  back  to  comfort  the  anxious  Mother  with 
the  news  that  the  doctor  was  coming. 

Meanwhile  Saxham  went  on  his  accustomed  way  between 
the  long  line  of  waggons  and  the  corrugated-iron  lined  huts 
on  the  other  hand,  in  a  cross-fire  of  appeals,  requests,  com- 
plaints. Nothing  escaped  him.  He  would  pass  by,  with  the 
most  casual  glance  and  nod,  women  who  volubly  protested 
themselves  dying,  and  single  out  the  face  that  bore  the  dull, 
scorched  flush  of  fever  or  the  yellow  or  livid  stamp  of  rheu- 
matism, or  ague,  or  liver  trouble,  with  a  beckon  of  his  hand, 
and  the  owner  of  such  a  face,  invariably  declaring  herself  a 
well  woman,  would  be  summarily  dealt  with,  and  dosed  with 
tabloid  or  tincture  out  of  the  inexhaustible  wallet  he  carried, 
slung  about  his  shoulders  by  its  webbing  band. 

"  Dokter,"  screeched  a  portly  Tante  in  a  soiled  cotton  bed- 
gown and  flapping  kappje,  appearing,  copper  stewpan  in  hand, 
from  between  the  canvas  tilt-curtains  of  a  living-waggon. 
"  You  are  come  at  last ;  the  Lord  be  thanked  for  it !  I  have 
much,  much  trouble  inside."  She  groaned,  and  laid  her  fat, 
unoccupied  hand  upon  the  afflicted  area,  adding:  "I  feel  I 
shall  not  be  quite  wholesome  here." 

"  Wat  scheelt  er  aan,  Tante  ?  "  He  spoke  the  Taal  with 
ease. 

The  large  Tante  snorted: 

"  What  is  the  matter  ?  Do  you  ask  me  what  is  the  matter  ? 
As  if  a  dokter  oughtn't  to  tell  me  that!  But  the  Engelsch 
are  regular  devils  for  asking  questions.  Since  you  must  know, 
I  have  a  mighty  wallowing  under  my  apron-band,  and  there- 
with a  pain.  How  is  it  begun  ?  It  is  begun  since  middugeten 
yesterday.  And  little  Dierck  here  has  the  belly-ache,  and  is 
giddy  in  the  head." 

"  Little  Dierck  will  have  something  worse  than  the  belly- 
ache, and  you  also,  if  you  eat  of  broth  or  vegetables  cooked  in 
a  vessel  as  unclean  as  that,  mevrouw." 

"  Hoe?  "  The  large  flabby  face  under  the  expansive  kappje 
became  red  as  the  South  African  sunset.  She  flourished  the 
yenerable  copper  stewpan,  its  rim  liberally  garnished  with 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  269 

verdigris,  ancient  deposit  of  fatty  matters  accumulated  at  the 
bottom.  "  Do  you  call  my  good  stewpan,  that  my  mother 
cooked  beef  and  succotash  and  pottage-herbs  in  before  me,  an 
unclean  vessel — you?  And  were  the  pan  otherwise  than  clean 
as  my  hand — as  my  apron!  " — a  double  comparison  of  the  un- 
fortuitous  kind — "  how  should  I  alter  matters  in  a  heathen 
place  like  this?"  Her  large  bosom  rocked  tumultuously. 
"  Dwelling  at  the  bottom  of  a  mud-hole  like  a  frog,  O  God 
of  my  fathers!  with  bullets  as  big  as  pumpkins  trundling  over- 
head, ready  to  whip  your  head  off  your  body  if  you  as  much  as 
stick  your  nose  above  ground — the  accursed  things !  " 

"  They  are  pumpkins  sent  by  your  own  countrymen,  Tante, 
so  you  ought  to  speak  of  them  more  civilly.  And — scour 
the  pot  with  a  double-handful  of  clean  sand ;  it  will  be  for  your 
health  as  well  as  the  kid's.  Come  here,  jongen — give  me  a 
look  at  the  little  tongue."  The  boy  went  to  him  confidently, 
and  stuck  it  out,  looking  up  with  innocent  wide  eyes  in  the 
square,  powerful  face,  as  Saxham  swung  round  his  wallet,  con- 
tinuing, "  Here,  mevrouw,  is  a  packet  of  Epsom  salts.  Take 
half  of  it,  stirred  in  a  cup  of  warm  water,  to-morrow  morning 
fasting " 

"  Allemachtig !  "  she  protested.  "  Is  that  the  Engelsch  way 
of  doctoring?  To  put  a  new  belly-grief  on  the  top  of  the  old 
one,  what  sense  is  in  that  ?  " 

"  It  is  the  new  nail,  Tante,  that  drives  out  the  rusty  old 
one.  Give  the  boy  a  teaspoonful  in  half  a  cup  of  water,  and 
remember  to  scour  the  pans." 

Saxham  passed  on,  stepping  neatly  with  his  small,  tan-booted, 
spurred  feet  between  the  dung  and  chip  fires  curling  up  in  blue 
smoke-spirals,  and  the  sprawling  children,  seeming  as  though 
he  did  not  notice  them,  yet  catching  up  one  that  had  a  rash, 
and  satisfying  himself  that  the  eruption  was  innocent  ere  he 
passed  on,  visiting  every  waggon-dwelling  and  cave-refuge, 
rating  the  inhabitants  of  some,  dosing  the  occupants  of  others, 
emerging  from  three  or  four  of  the  stuffy,  ill-smelling  places 
with  a  heavy  frown  that  boded  ill  for  somebody.  For  though 
Famine  had  not  yet  begun  to  gnaw  the  vitals  of  those  immured 
in  Gueldersdorp,  Disease  had  here  and  there  sprung  into  active, 
threatening,  infectious  being,  menacing  the  crowded  community 
with  invisible,  maleficent  forces.  Soon  the  hospitals  were  to 
be  crowded  to  the  doors,  to  remain  crowded  for  many  months 
to  come;  and  the  cry,  "  Room  for  the  sick!  more  room!  "  was 
to  go  up  unceasingly. 


270  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

Coming  out  of  a  miserable  habitation,  where  lay  a  woman 
in  rheumatic  fever,  whose  three  children  had  developed  measles 
on  the  previous  day,  and,  seeing  about  the  door  of  a  neighbour- 
ing hovel  a  particularly  noisome  aggregation  of  garbage  and 
waste,  he  paused  but  to  give  a  brief  direction  to  the  mild-faced 
Sister  who  had  assumed  charge  of  the  sick.  Then  his  voice 
rang  out  above  all  the  feminine  and  childish  Babel,  strong, 
resonant,  masculine: 

"  Where  are  the  head-boys  of  the  gangs  that  I  told  off  to 
clean  up  and  carry  ash-buckets  to  the  dumping-place?  " 

Whence,  under  cover  of  night,  the  garbage  and  waste  were 
carted  to  the  destructor  in  connection  with  the  Acetylene  Gas 
Works,  not  yet  destroyed  by  one  of  Meisje's  shells.  There 
was  no  answer.  Saxham  took  the  worn  hunting-crop  from 
under  his  arm,  and  with  an  easy  movement  shook  out  the 
twisted  thong. 

"Where  are  those  two  boys?     Jim  Gubo!  Rasu!" 

A  pale  young  woman  peeling  potatoes  at  her  door  looked 
up  knowingly.  "  They  won't  carry  away  a  cabbage-leaf  un- 
less they're  bribed,  and  they  open  their  mouths  wider  every  day. 
It.'s  a  tikkie  a  bucket  now." 

The  young  woman  went  back  to  her  potatoes.  The  offend- 
ers, visibly  quaking,  crept  from  under  a  waggon,  where  they 
had  been  gambling  with  dry  mealies  for  ill-gotten  tikkies.  A 
big  Kaffir  boy  in  ragged  tan-cords  and  the  crownless  brim  of 
an  Oxford  straw,  with  a  red-turbaned,  blue  dungaree-clad, 
supple  Oriental  of  the  coolie  class.  Jim  Gubo,  with  liberal 
display  of  ivory,  assured  the  Baas,  in  defiance  of  the  Baas's 
own  eyes  and  the  organ  in  juxtaposition,  that  the  work  had 
been  regularly  done.  Rasu  the  Sweeper,  with  many  oaths 
and  protestations,  assured  the  Presence  that  such  neglect  as 
was  apparent  was  owing  to  the  incapacity  of  the  hubshi  and 
his  myrmidons,  Rasu's  own  share  of  the  labour  and  that  of  his 
fellow-countryman  being  scrupulously  performed. 

The  Presence  made  short  work  of  Kaffir  and  Hindu.  Shrill 
feminine  clamours  filled  the  air  as  singing  lash  performed  its 
work  of  castigation ;  and  while  Saxham  scored  repentance  upon 
the  hide  of  his  blacker  brother,  holding  him  writhing,  shouting, 
and  bellowing  at  the  full  stretch  of  one  muscular  arm,  as  he 
plied  the  other,  he  kept  a  foot  on  Rasu  the  Sweeper,  so  as  to 
have  him  handy  when  his  turn  came.  Meanwhile,  the  Oriental, 
with  tears  and  lamentable  bowlings,  wound  about  the  doctor's 
leg,  a  vocal  worm,  deprecating  tyranny. 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  271 

"Your  Honour  is  my  father  and  mother.  Let  the  hand 
of  justice  refrain  from  excoriating  the  person  of  the  unfortu- 
nate, wreaking  double  vengeance  upon  .the  hubshi,  who  is  but 
fuel  for  Hell,  like  all  his  accursed  race,  and  full  explanation 
shall  be  made." 

He  was  jerked  upward  by  the  scruff,  as,  smarting,  blubbering, 
Africa  retired  to  the  shadow  of  the  waggons. 

"  Well,  what  have  you  got  to  say?  " 

The  bellow  of  the  town  batteries,  with  the  clack — clack — 
clack!  of  the  Hotchkiss  that  had  been  removed  from  the 
armoured  train  and  mounted  on  the  North  Fort,  reduced  the 
tirade  to  pantomime. 

"  This  is  bad,  a  very  bad,  place  for  the  son  of  my  mother." 
The  lean  brown  right  hand  swept  upward  to  the  thick  canopy 
of  white  smoke  that  the  shifting  breeze  rolled  back  from  the 
Cemetery  Earthworks.  "  The  food  of  coarse  grain  is  diet  for 
camels,  and  the  water  stinks  very  greatly.  Moreover,  it  is 
better  for  thy  slave  to  die  amongst  defilements  than  to  carry 
buckets  and  be  chased  by  devils  in  iron  pots  thirsting  for  the 
blood  of  men.  Aie — aie !  " 

One  of  the  enemy's  Maxim-Nordenfeldts  had  loosed  off  a 
group  of  gaily-painted  little  shells.  With  the  reduplicated 
rattle  of  the  detonation,  they  passed  over  the  laager,  bursting 
as  they  went,  sending  their  fan-shaped  showers  of  splinters 
broadcast.  Slatternly  women  and  scared  children  bolted  for 
their  burrows.  Rasu  the  Sweeper  dived  frantically  between  the 
fore  and  hind-wheels  of  a  waggon,  praying  to  all  the  gods  of 
the  low-caste  to  ward  off  those  wicked  little  bits  of  rending 
metal.  .  .  . 

"  Anyone  hurt?"  called  Saxham. 

"  No  one,  I  think,"  called  back  the  strong  sweet  voice  of  the 
Mother-Superior,  who  had  come  out  of  a  hovel,  where  she  was 
tending  some  sick.  There  was  a  glint  in  her  deep  eyes  as  she  re- 
garded Saxham's  thorough  handiwork  that  told  her  approval  of 
castigation  well  deserved.  Then: 

"Maharaj!  Oh,  Maharaj !  Succour  in  calamity!  Aid  for  the 
dying!  Hai,  hai,  behold  how  I  bleed!  " 

The  red-turbaned  martyr  rolled  in  the  unclean  litter,  elevat- 
ing a  stick-like  brown  leg,  in  the  lean,  muscular  calf  of  which 
one  of  the  smallest  of  the  wicked  little  splinters  had,  as  Rasu 
the  Sweeper  dived  for  the  waggon,  found  a  home. 

'  That  has  saved  you  a  well-earned  hiding,  so  thank  your 
stars  for  it.  Let  the  Kaffir  see  to  it  that  he  insults  no  more 


272  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

English  ladies,  or  he  shall  pay  for  every  word  with  an  inch  of 
skin.  Now  put  up  your  leg."  Saxham  whipped  out  the  splinter 
with  a  little  pair  of  tweezers,  deftly  cleansed  and  dressed  the 
wound,  bandaged  it,  and,  dismissing  Rasu  the  Sweeper  with  a 
caution,  was  coming  across  to  the  Reverend  Mother  when  a 
chorus  of  cries  and  piercing  shrieks  broke  forth: 

"  Mya  joagen !  mya  joagen !  " 

She  was  a  bulky  Dutch  vrouw,  with  a  dishevelled  head  of 
coarse  black  hair,  and  a  dirty  cotton  gown,  and  dirty  bare  feet 
in  bulgy  shoes  that  were  trodden  down  at  heel.  But  with  her 
livid,  purple  face  and  protruding,  bloodshot  eye-balls  uplifted  to 
the  drifting  cloud  of  greenish  lyddite  vapour  that  thinned  away 
overhead,  she  was  great  and  terrible,  and  the  very  Incarnation 
of  Motherhood  Bereft. 

One  huge  arm  gripped  the  little  body  to  her  broad,  panting 
bosom.  She  had  called  him,  and  he  had  not  answered ;  she  had 
sought  and  found  him,  just  as  he  had  slidden  off  the  box-seat, 
where  he  had  been  playing  driver  of  the  ox-span,  lying  curled 
up  against  the  dashboard,  the  little  whip  of  stick  and  string  he 
had  been  at  pains  to  make  only  yesterday  fallen  from  the  lax, 
childish  hand.  The  fair  hair  on  the  left  temple  was  dabbled  in 
blood,  that  trickled  from  the  tiny  three-cornered  bluish  hole. 
His  eyes  were  open,  as  if  in  wonder  at  the  sudden  darkness  that 
had  fallen  at  bright  midday ;  the  smile  had  frozen  on  the  parted, 
innocent  lips.  .  .  . 

Oh,  look  at  this,  Premier  and  President!  Look  at  this,  my 
Lords  and  Commons  and  militant  Burghers  of  Republican 
States!  Grave  Ministers  who  decide  in  Cabinet  Councils  that 
the  prestige  of  the  Government  they  represent  is  at  stake,  and 
\that  the  bedraggled  honour  of  the  Country  can  only  be  washed 
clean  in  one  red  river,  flowing  from  the  veins  of  Humanity, 
.look,  look  here!  You  who  lust  for  Sovereignty,  hiding  rapa- 
cious Ambitions  and  base  lust  for  gold  behind  the  splendid 
ermined  folds  of  the  Imperial  purple.  You  who  resented 
Suzerainty,  coveting  to  keep  in  your  hands  riches  that,  you  could 
not  use,  resources  that  your  ignorance  could  not  develop, 
greedy  to  have  and  hold  what  you  wrested  from  the  Sons  of 
Ham,  lest  white  men  should  snatch  it  back  from  you  again ;  and 
prating  of  Liberty  and  Freedom  while  the  necks  of  three  races 
of  men  were  bending  under  the  yoke  of  an  oligarchy  more  im- 
perious, more  pitiless,  more  covetous,  besotted,  brutal,  and  ig- 
norant than  any  other  that  the  spotted  records  of  History  can 
show — look  here,  look  here! 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  273 

Nations  that  rush  to  dreadful  War,  loosing  the  direful  three- 
fold plague  of  Iron,  Fire,  and  Disease  to  scourge  and  brand 
and  desolate  the  once  smiling  face  of  your  Mother  Earth, 
pause  as  you  roll  onward  in  desolating  cataclysms  of  armed  and 
desperate  men,  and  forgetting  the  blood-stained  she-devil  you 
misname  Glory,  look  here,  in  the  name  of  One  who  loved  and 
suffered  little  children,  rating  their  innocent  bodies  and  spotless 
souls  at  such  high  value  that  Little  Dierck  and  his  countless 
brother-and-sister-babes  that  have  perished  of  Iron,  Fire,  and 
Disease,  as  of  Terror  and  Famine,  Death's  twin  henchmen, 
shall  weigh  in  the  balance  against  Crowned  Heads  and  Lords 
and  Commons  and  Presidents  and  Representatives  and  Dep- 
uties, until  they  kick  the  beam. 

Should  there  be  War!  Of  course  there  should  be  War! 
you  say. 

Have  you  seen  War?  Perhaps,  even  as  I  have.  And,  hav- 
ing seen  it,  dare  you  justify  the  shedding,  by  men  who  hold  the 
Christian  Faith,  of  these  spilled-out  oceans  of  Christian  blood  ? 

That  question  will  be  settled  when  the  Trumpet  of  the 
Great  Angel  sounds,  and  the  Sea  and  the  Earth  shall  give  up 
their  dead,  and  everyone  shall  answer  for  his  deeds  before  the 
Throne  of  God.  And  until  then,  look  to  it  that  if  you  war  in 
any  cause,  the  cause  be  a  just  one. 

"My  Dierck!    My  little  Dierck!  O  God!  God! " 

Standing  with  that  tragic  purple  mask  turned  upwards  to 
the  silent  sky,  and  the  wild  eyes  blazing,  and  the  great  fist  at 
the  end  of  the  uplifted  arm  brandished  in  the  Face  of  Heaven 
itself,  the  Boer  mother  demanded  of  her  Maker  why  this  thing 
had  been  done? 

"  He  was  so  good.  Never  a  fib  since  last  I  gave  him  the  ox- 
reim  end  to  taste.  Never  a  lump  of  sugar  or  a  cookie  or  a  plum 
pilfered — he  would  take  them  as  bold  as  brass  before  your  face 
if  you  didn't  give.  He  said  the  night-prayer  regularly.  For 
the  morning,  Lord,  thou  knowest  boys  want  to  be  up  and  at  mis- 
chief as  soon  as  they  have  rubbed  the  sleep  out  of  their  eyes — 
'tis  only  natural.  And  the  father  a  God-fearing  man,  and  me 
a  woman  of  piety.  For  when  have  I  backslidden  before  Thee  ? 
If  any  of  mine  have  hung  back  when  I  told  them  to  loop  and 
do  a  thing,  or  sneaked  off  and  hid  when  we  were  inspanned  for 
the  kerk-going,  did  I  fail  to  whack  them  as  a  mother  should? 
Nooit,  nooit !  And  now — Death  has  fallen  out  of  the  sky  upon 
the  Benjamin  of  my  bosom.  Oh,  blasted  be  the  eye-sight  and 


274  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

withered  be  the  hand  of  the  man  that  sighted  and  laid  and  fired 
the  gun !  " 

She  cursed  the  Kaiser's  blue-and-white-uniformed  gunner 
in  every  function  of  his  body  and  every  corner  of  his  soul,  wak- 
ing and  sleeping,  dying  and  dead,  with  fluent  Scriptural  curses. 
The  crowded  faces  about  her  went  white.  Some  of  the  women 
were  crying,  others  shook  their  heads: 

"  Thim  that  puts  the  Bad  Black  Wish  on  odhers  finds  sorra 
knock  harrd  at  their  dure,"  said  an  Irish  voice  oracularly. 
"  An'  who  but  herself  did  be  callin'  down  all  manner  av'  mis- 
fortune on  ivery  wan  that  crassed  her  ?  " 

"  It's  a  judgment — my  opinion,"  agreed  the  thin  young 
woman  who  had  been  peeling  potatoes,  and  who  wore  a  wisp 
of  draggled  crape  round  a  soiled  rush  hat.  "  Never  a  shell 
busted  but  you'd  a-heerd  her  say  she  hoped  that  one  had  sent 
another  parcel  of  verdant  rooineks  to  Hell.  And  me  sitting 
over  against  her  with  crape  on  for  my  husband  and  baby. 
'  Tis  a  judgment,  that's  what  I  say." 

"Oh,  hush,  Mrs.  Lennan!"  said  the  Mother-Superior. 
"  Be  pitiful  and  forget.  She  did  not  think — she  had  not  suf« 
fered.  Be  pitiful,  now  that  her  hour  has  come !  " 

The  thick  voice  of  the  Boer  woman  broke  out  again: 

"  Did  ever  I  miss  of  the  Nachtmaal  ?  Allemachtig,  no ! 
Virtuous  as  Sarah  have  I  lain  in  the  marriage-bed — never  a  sly 
look  for  another,  and  my  husband  with  dropsy-legs  as  thick  as 
boomstammen,  and  sixty  years  upon  his  loins.  Thou  knewest, 
and  yet  the  joy  of  my  life  is  taken  from  me.  Where  wert  Thou, 
O  God  of  Israel,  when  they  killed  my  little  Dierck?  " 

The  Mother-Superior  leaned  to  her,  and  threw  a  strong,  ten- 
der arm  about  the  fleshy  shoulders.  She  said,  speaking  in  the 
/Taal : 

"  Hush,  hush!  Remember  that  He  gave  the  joy  before  He 
sent  the  sorrow.  And  we  must  submit  ourselves  to  the  Holy 
Will." 

The  Boer  woman  snorted: 

"  As  if  I  didn't  know  that  better  than  a  Papist.  Look  you, 
have  I  shed  one  tear?"  She  blinked  hard  dry  eyes  defiantly. 
The  Mother  went  on  in  that  velvet  voice  of  hers,  making  the 
uncouth  dialect  sound  like  the  cooing  of  an  Irish  dove: 

"  Better  that  you  had  tears,  poor  mother!  Ah!  best  to  weep. 
Did  not  our  Lord  weep  over  His  dearest  city,  and  for  His  be- 
loved friend?  And  when  He  pitied  the  Widow  of  Nain,  do 
you  think  his  eyes  were  dry?  Ah!  best  to  weep." 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  275 

She  wrenched  herself  away,  shouting: 

"  He  raised  Lazarus  from  the  dead  for  Mary  his  sister,  and 
she  had  been  a  shameless  wench.  And  he  gave  the  other  back 
her  boy.  What  has  he  done  for  me?  " 

The  sisterly  arm  held  her  fast;  the  great  grey  eyes  looked 
into  hers,  wet  with  the  tears  that  were  denied  to  her. 

"  He  has  given  you  an  Angel  to  pray  for  you  in  Heaven." 

She  snorted  rebelliously : 

"  His  mother  wants  him  down  here.  .  .  .  And  what  is 
Heaven  to  little  Dierck,  when  he  could  be  sailing  his  boat  in 
the  river-pools,  and  playing  at  driving  the  span?" 

But  she  let  the  Mother-Superior  take  him  from  her,  and 
dropped  her  great  arms  doggedly  at  her  sides,  watching  dry-eyed 
.as  they  laid  him  down,  and  Saxham  stooped  above  him  feeling 
at  the  pulseless  heart.  She  saw  the  docter  shake  his  head  and 
lay  down  the  little  hand.  She  saw  the  Mother-Superior  coax 
down  the  eyelids  with  tender,  skilful  ringers,  and  put  a  kiss  on 
each,  making  the  Sign  of  the  Cross  on  the  still,  childish  breast, 
and  murmuring  a  little  prayer.  She  would  have  screamed 
to  avert  the  defiling,  heathen  thing  from  him,  but  the  memory 
of  the  sister  embrace  and  the  sister  look  held  her  dumb. 

It  was  only  when  they  were  stripping  him  for  the  last  sad 
toilet,  and  the  cherished  top  and  half  a  dozen  highly-prized 
marbles  rolled  out  of  the  pocket  in  the  stumpy  little  pair  of 
breeches  she  had  made  out  of  a  cast-off  jacket  of  his  father's 
that  her  bosom  heaved,  and  the  fountains  of  her  grief  sprang 
from  the  stony  soil.  She  wept  copiously,  and  found  resigna- 
tion. Soon  she  was  sufficiently  herself  to  scold  a  prodigally- 
minded  spinster  relative  who  had  proposed  that  Little  Dierck 
should  be  coffined  in  his  new  black  Sabbath  suit. 

"  But  you  old  maids  have  no  sense,  no  more  than  so  many 
cabbages.  Little  angels  in  the  hemel  can  fly  about  in  clean 
nightgowns — look  in  the  grandfather's  big  picture-Bible  if  you 
don't  believe  me.  But  live  boys  can't  loop  about  without 
breeches.  So  I'll  lay  these  by  for  the  next  one. 


XXXIII 

ROASTING  hot  Christmas  has  gone  by,  with  its  services  and 
celebrations,  its  sports  and  entertainments,  its  meagre  feasting, 
and  its  hearty  cheer,  a  bloodless  triumph  followed  by  the  re- 
grettable defeat  sustained  in  the  battle  of  One  Tree  Hill.  To- 


276  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

day  the  Union  Jack  hangs  limp  upon  the  flagstaff  that,  rears  its 
slender  height  over  Nixey's,  and  the  new  year  is  some  weeks 
old.  The  blue,  blue  sky  of  January  is  without  a  single  puff  of 
cloud,  and  the  taint  from  the  trenches  is  less  sickening,  un- 
mingled  with  the  poisonous  fumes  of  lyddite  arid  melinite  burst- 
ing-charges, and  the  acrid  fumes  of  smokeless  powder.  It  is 
Sunday,  when  Briton  and  Boer  hold  the  Truce  of  God,  and 
the  church-bells  ring  to  call  and  not  to  warn  the  people,  and 
sweet  Peace  and  blessed  Silence  brood  over  the  shrapnel-scarred 
veld.  The  aasvogels  feast  undisturbed  on  bloated  carcasses  of 
horses  and  cattle  lying  on  the  Debatable  Ground  between  the 
Line  of  Investment  and  the  Line  of  Defence,  the  barbel  in  the 
river  leap  at  the  fleas,  and  partridge  and  wild  guinea-fowl  drink 
in  the  shallows,  and  bathe  in  the  dry  hot  sand  between  the 
boulder-stones. 

The  Market  Square  is  populous  with  a  chatting,  sauntering 
crowd  of  people,  who  enjoy  the  luxury  of  using  their  limbs 
without  being  called  on  to  displays  of  acrobatic  agility  in  dodg- 
ing trundling  shell.  There  are  Irregulars  and  B.S.A.P.,  Bara- 
land  Rifles  and  Town  Guardsmen.  There  are  the  Native 
contingent  from  the  stad,  and  a  company  of  Zulus,  and  the  Fin- 
goes  and  the  Cape  Boys  with  their  gaspipe  rifles  that  do  good 
service  in  default  of  better,  and  bring  down  Oom  Paul's 
Scripture-seasoned  denunciation  upon  Englishmen,  who  arm 
black  and  coloured  folk  to  do  battle  for  their  own  sable  or  yel- 
low rights.  These  have  donned  odd  garments  and  quaint  bits 
of  finery  to  mark  the  holiday,  and  every  white  man  has  indulged 
in  the  luxury  of  a  comprehensive  wash,  a  shave  with  hot  water, 
and  a  change  of  clothing,  if  it  is  obtainable.  Also,  drooping 
feminine  vanity  revives  in  hair-waves  and  emerges  from  under- 
ground burrows  of  Troglodyfic  form,  arrayed  in  fluttering 
muslins,  and  crowned  with  coquettish  hats,  which  walk  about' 
in  company  with  ragged  khaki  and  clay-stained  duck  and  out- 
at-elbows  tweed,  and  are  proud  to  be  seen  in  its  brave  company. 

Husbands  and  wives,  fathers  and  daughters,  sons  and  mothers, 
lovers  and  sweethearts,  meet  after  the  week  whose  separating 
days  have  seemed  like  weeks,  and  visit  the  houses  whose  pierced 
walls  and  roofs,  that  let  the  sunshine  in  through  many  jagged 
holes,  may  one  day,  so  they  whisper,  holding  one  another 
closely,  shelter  them  again  in  peace.  Home  has  become  a 
sweet  word,  even  to  those  who  thought  little  of  home  before. 
And  many  who  were  sinful  have  found  conviction  of  sin  and 
the  saving  grace  of  repentance,  and  many  more  who  denied 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  277 

their  God  have  learned  to  know  Him,  in  this  village  town  of 
battered  dwellings,  whose  streets  are  littered  with  all  the  grim 
debris  of  War. 

Nixey's  has  not  come  scathless  through  the  ordeal.  The 
stately  brick  chimneys  of  the  kitchen  and  coffee-room  have  been 
broken  off  like  carrots,  and  replaced  by  tin  funnels.  Patches 
of  the  universal  medium,  corrugated  iron,  indicate  where  one  of 
Meisje's  ninety-four-pound  projectiles  recently  plumped  in 
through  the  soft  brick  of  the  east  wall  end  and  departed  by  the 
west  frontage,  leaving  two  holes  that  might  have  accommodated 
a  chest  of  drawers,  and  carrying  a  window  with  it.  Mrs. 
Nixey,  the  children,  and  the  women  of  the  staff  inhabit  a 
bomb-proof  in  the  back-yard.  The  waiters  have  developed 
a  grasshopper-like  nimbleness,  otherwise  things  go  on  as 
usual. 

It  being  Sunday,  a  large  long  man  and  another  as  long, 
but  less  bulky,  are  extended  in  a  couple  of  long  bamboo  chairs 
on  Nixey's  longish  front  veranda.  The  blue,  fragrant  smoke 
of  two  long  cigars  curls  upwards  over  their  supine  heads,  and 
two  long  drinks  containing  a  very  meagre  modicum  of  inferior 
whisky  are  contained  in  two  long  tumblers,  resting  in  the  bam- 
boo nests  cunningly  devised  for  their  accommodation  in  the 
chair-arms. 

It  is  hot,  but  both  the  men  look  cool  and  lazy,  and  almost 
too  fresh  to  have  spent  the  greater  part  of  the  night,  the  younger 
upon  advanced  patrol-duty  and  the  elder  at  the  Staff  bomb- 
proof in  the  Southern  Lines,  where  messages  come  in  and  where 
messages  go  out,  and  where  reports  are  received  and  from 
whence  orders  are  dispatched  from  sunset  to  the  peep  of  day, 
and  from  peep  of  day  to  sunset. 

The  Wardrobes  of  H.  M.  garrison  are  much  impaired  by 
active  service,  but  the  flannel  trousers  of  both  warriors,  if 
patched,  and  shrunken  by  the  hasty  amateur  lavations,  boast 
the  cut  of  Bond  Street;  their  shirts,  if  a  trifle  ragged,  are  im- 
maculately clean,  and  the  cracks  in  their  canvas  shoes  are  dis- 
guised by  a  lavish  expenditure  of  pipeclay.  Beauvayse  has  rum- 
maged out  and  mounted  a  snowy  double  collar  in  honour  of  the 
Bay,  with  a  knitted  silk  necktie  of  his  Regimental  colours,  and 
a  kamarband  to  match  is  wound  about  his  narrow,  springy 
waist,  and  knotted  to  perfection  at  the  left  side.  Both  men 
might  be  basking  in  a  Thames-side  camp,  or  resting  after  a 
bout  at  tennis  on  an  English  lawn,  but  for  the  revolver-lan- 
yards round  their  strong,  bronzed  throats,  ending  in  the  butts 


278  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

of  Smith  and  Wesson's  of  Service  calibre,  the  bandoliers  and 
belts  that  lie  handy  on  a  table,  and  the  Lee-Metford  carbines 
that  lean  in  an  angle  made  by  the  house-wall  and  the  veranda 
end.  Also,  but.  for  the  tension  of  long-sustained  watchfulness 
on  both  faces,  making  it  plain  that,  though  resting  and  repose- 
ful, they  are  neither  of  them  unexpectant  of  a  summons  to  be 
the  opposite  of  these  things.  It  is  ?  look  that,  at  different  de- 
grees of  intensity,  is  stamped  on  every  face  in  Gueldersdorp. 
An  the  same  uncertainty  possesses  and  pervades  even  un- 
sentient  things.  The  Union  Jack,  hanging  listlessly  from  the 
summit  of  its  lofty  staff,  bathed  in  the  golden,  glowing  atmos- 
phere of  this  January  day,  may,  in  an  instant's  space,  give  pl«ce 
to  the  red  signal  of  danger;  the  bugle,  now  silent,  may  at  any 
moment  blare  out  its  loud  and  dismal  note  of  warning;  the 
bells  that  call  with  peaceful  insistence,  "  Come  to  church,  come 
to  church,"  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  may  be  clanging  scared 
townsfolk  to  their  burrowed  hiding-places.  You  never  know. 
For  General  Bronnckers,  though  a  God-fearing  man,  some- 
times goes  in  for  Sunday  gun-practice,  quite  unintentionally,  as 
he  afterwards  explains.  Hence,  even  on  the  Sabbath,  it  is  as 
well  to  be  prepared. 

Beauvayse  is  the  first  to  break  the  drowsy  silence  by  knock- 
ing the  lengthened  ash  off  his  cigar,  and  expressing  his  opinion 
that  the  weed  might  be  a  worse  one. 

"  Considerin'  the  price  the  box  of  fifty  was  knocked  down 
to  me  for  at  Kreils'  auction  yesterday,"  states  Captain  Bingo, 
"  it's  simply  smokin'  gold.  Nine  pound  fifteen-and-six  runs  me 
into,  how  much  apiece?"  He  yawns  cavernously,  and  gives 
the  calculation  up.  "  Always  was  a  duffer  at  figures,"  he  says, 
and  relapses  into  silence  until,  in  the  act  of  throwing  the  nearly 
smoked-out  cigar  butt  away,  he  pulls  himself  up,  and,  eco- 
nomically impaling  it  on  his  penknife-blade,  secures  a  few  more 
whiffs. 

"  Against  the  banian  days  to  come,  when  there  will  be  no 
balm  left  in  Gilead,"  says  Beauvayse,  cocking  a  grey-green  eye 
at  him  in  sleepy  derision,  "  and  no  tobacco  in  Gueldersdorp." 

"  Kreils  are  sellin'  dashed  bad  cigarettes  at  a  pound  the  box 
of  a  hundred  now,"  says  Captain  Bingo;  "and  I've  a  notion 
of  layin'  in  a  stock  of  'em.  We  smoked  tea  in  the  Sudan,  and 
I  had  a  shot  at  hemp,  but  it  plays  the  very  devil  with  the  nerves. 
All  jumps  and  twitches,  you  know,  after  a  pipe  or  two.  Nerv- 
ous as  a  cat,  or  a  woman.  And,  talking  of  women,  I  wonder 
where  my  wife  is  ?  " 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  279 

He  turns  a  large,  pink,  disconsolate  face  upon  Beauvayse. 
Beauvayse  responds  with  the  air  of  one  who  has  suffered  bore- 
dom from  the  too  frequent  enumeration  of  this  conjecture. 
"  Not  knowing,  can't  say."  And  there  is  another  silence. 

"  How  she  got  the  maggot  into  her  head,"  presently  resumes 
Lady  Hannah's  spouse,  "  I  can't  think.  I  did  suppose  her 
vaultin'  ambition  to  rival  Dora  Carr — woman  who  managed 
to  burn  her  own  and  a  lot  of  other  people's  fingers  by  meddlin' 
in  South  African  politics  over  the  Raid  business — had  been 
quenched  for  good  that  mornin'  you  took  those  fifty  chaps  of 
the  Irregulars  out  for  what  she  would  call  their  '  baptism  of 
fire.'  " 

"  That's  newspaperese,"  yawns  Beauvayse,  his  supple  brown 
hands  knitted  at  the  back  of  his  sleek  golden  head.  "  Goes  with 
*  the  tented  field '  and  casus  belli:  cherchez  la  femme  and  cui 
bono?" 

"  She's  got  the  lingo  at  her  finger-ends  and  in  her  blood,  or 
we  wouldn't  be  cherchaying  now,"  says  Bingo  dolorously.  "  I 
asked  her  if  she  was  particular  keen  on  gettin'  killed.  .  .  ." 

"  Shouldn't  have  done  that.  Put  her  on  her  mettle  not.  to 
show  funk  if  she  felt  it,"  mumbles  Beauvayse. 

"  A  man  can't  always  be  diplomatic,"  grumbles  Bingo. 
"  Anyhow,  she  quoted  classic  authors  and  French  epigram- 
tinkers,  and  vowed  she'd  be  hanged  if  she'd  have  married  me 
if  she'd  known  I'd  stand  between  her  and  the  achievement  of 
a  Career.  And  next  morning  she  rides  out  with  a  Corporal 
and  two  troopers,  both  chaps  beastly  sensible  of  their  responsibil- 
ity, and  wishin'  her  at  Cape  Town,  she  in  toppin'  spirits  and 
as  keen  as  mustard.  It  was  about  six  o'clock,  morning,  and 
she  hadn't  been  gone  five  minutes  before  we  heard  you  fellows 
poundin'  away  and  bein'  pounded  at  like  Jimmy  O!  I  was  on 
the  roof  with  the  Chief,  the  sweat  runnin'  down  into  the 
binoculars,  until  the  veld  seemed  swarmin'  with  brown  mares 
and  grey  linen  habits  and  drab  smasher  pelts,  with  my  wife's 
head  under  'em,  and  hoverin'  troopers.  But  I  did  make  out 
that  your  party  had  got  into  difficulties " 

"  We  opened  on  'em  at  a  thousand  yards,  and  pushed  to 
within  five  hundred,  and  if  the  Armoured  train  could  have  got 
a  broadside,"  Beauvayse  interrupts  rather  huffily,  "  we'd  have 
been  as  right  as  rain." 

"  Possibly.  If  I  hadn't  been  on  special  duty  that  day,  and 
as  nervous  as  a  cat  in  a  thunderstorm,  I'd  have  volunteered  to 
bring  No.  2  Troop  of  A  out  to  the  rescue,  instead  of  Heseltine. 


280  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

As  it  was,  I  nearly  fell  off  the  roof  when  I  saw  my  wife  com- 
ing, one  trooper  as  pale  with  fright  as  a  piece  of  soap  supportin' 
her  on  his  saddle,  another  man  leading  the  mare,  dead  lame, 
and  the  Corporal's  hairy.  Plugged  in  the  upper  works,  the 
Corporal,  poor  beggar!  but  he'd  managed  to  stick  on  somehow 
until  they  got  to  the  Hospital.  Have  you  ever  had  to  deal  with 
a  woman  in  hysterics?  " 

Beauvayse  nods  sagely. 

"  Once  or  twice." 

"  Once  is  an  experience  that  lasts  a  man  all  his  lifetime. 
Phew !  "  Captain  Bingo  mops  his  large  pink  face.  "  Never 
had  such  a  dressing-down  in  my  life." 

"But  what  had  you  to  do  with  the  Corporal  getting 
chipped  ?  " 

'The  Lord  only  knows!"  says  Bingo  piously.  "But,  if 
you'd  heard  her,  all  the  rest  of  the  day  and  half  through  the 
night!  .  .  ." 

"  I  did,"  Beauvayse  says  with  a  faiot  grin.  "  Mine's  the 
next  bedroom  to  yours  you  know." 

"  '  Oh,  the  blood !  Oh,  the  blood !'..."  Not  unsuccess- 
fully does  the  spouse  of  Lady  Hannah  attempt  to  render  the 
recurrent  hiccough  and  the  whooping  screech  of  hysteria. 

'  Damn  it,  my  dear ! '  I  said,  tryin'  to  reason  with  her,  '  what 
else  did  you  expect  the  fellow  had  got  in  him  ?  Sawdust  ? ' 
That  seemed  to  rouse  her  like  nothing  else.  .  .  .  Turned  on 
me  like  a  tigress,  by  the  living  Tinker! — called  me  everything 
she  could  lay  her  tongue  to,  and  threatened  that  she'd  apply 
for  a  separation  if  I  continued  to  outrage  every  feeling  of 
decency  that  association  with  such  a  thundering  brute  hadn't 
uprooted  from  her  nature." 

"Whe— ew!" 

Beauvayse's  comment  is  a  shrill-toned  whistle. 

"  Of  course,  her  nerves  were  knocked  to  smithereens,  and  a 
man  can  overlook  a  lot,  under  the  circumstances.  She  was  a 

mere  jelly  when  the  bombardment  began "  goes  on  rueful 

Captain  Bingo. 

" — Rather,"  confirms  Beauvayse, — "  lived  in  the  hotel  cellar 
for  the  first  fortnight,  only  emergin'  from  among  the  beer- 
barrels  and  wine-casks  and  liqueur-cases  at  night " 

" — To  blow  me  up  and  forgive  me,  turn  and  turn  about, 
until  daylight  did  appear.  Luckily,"  reflects  Bingo,  with  a 
rather  dreary  chuckle,  "  I  had  plenty  of  night-duty  about  »«st 
then,  and  so  escaped  a  lot." 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  281 

"  That  gave  her  her  chance  to  shoot  the  moon !  "  hints 
Beauvayse,  in  accents  muffled  by  his  long  tumbler. 

"  By  the  Living  Tinker!  "  asseverates  Captain  Bingo,  jerked 
out  of  his  reclining  attitude  by  vigorous  utterance  of  the  ex- 
pletive, "  you  could  have  bowled  me  over  with  a  scent-squirter 
when  I  came"  back  to  brekker  and  found  her  gone,  and  a  cocked- 
hat  note  of  farewell  left  for  me  on  the  dressing-table  pincushion, 
in  regular  elopement  style  and  another  for  the  Chief,  sayin' 
— he  read  it  to  me — that  she'd  gone  to  retrieve  the  Past,  with 
a  capital  '  P,'  and  hoped  to  convince  him  ere  long  that  one  of 
her  despised  sex — underlined,  '  despised  sex ' — can  be  useful  to 
her  country." 

' '  Can  be  useful  to  her  country,' "  repeats  Beauvayse. 
"Question  is,  in  what  way?" 

"  Damme  if  I  can  imagine !  "  bursts  explosively  from  the  de- 
serted husband.  "  All  I  know  up  to  date,  and  all  you  know, 
is  that  before  it  was  quite  light  she  drove  out  of  our  lines  in 
Nixey's  spider,  his  mouse-coloured  trotter  pullin',  and  her  Ger- 
man maid  sittin'  behind,  wavin'  a  white  towel  tied  to  the  end 
of  a  walkin'-stick  of  mine,  and  went  straight  over  to  the  enemy. 
We  hear  in  the  course  of  things  from  a  Kaffir  despatch-runner 
that  she's  stayin'  in  a  hotel  of  sorts  at  Tweipans,  where 
Bronnckers  has  had  his  headquarters  since  he  moved  from 
Kloof  Laager,  Geibfontein.  And  for  any  further  information 
we  may  knock  our  rotten  heads  against  a  brick  wall  and  twiddle 
our  thumbs.  Never  you  marry,  Toby,  my  boy! " 

A  V-shaped  vein  swells  and  darkens  between  the  handsome 
grey-green  eyes  and  on  the  broad  forehead,  white  as  a  girl's, 
where  sun-tan  leaves  off.  Beauvayse  takes  his  cigar  again  from 
his  mouth,  and  knocks  the  ash  off  deliberately  before  he  rej 
spends: 

"  Thanks  for  the  advice." 

"  Be  warned,"  says  Captain  Bingo  sententiously,  "  by  me.] 
Know  when  you're  well  off,  as  I  didn't.  Take  the  advice  of 
your  seniors,  as  I  was  too  pig-headed  a  fool  to  do,  and  don't  put 
it  in  the  power  of  any  woman  to  make  you  as  rottenly  wretched 
as  I  am  at  this  minute." 

"Why!  women  can  make  you  rottenly  wretched,"  admits 
Beauvayse,  with  a  confirmatory  creak  of  the  bamboo  chair. 
"But,  on  the  other  hand,  they  can  make  you  awfully  happy— 
what?" 

Captain  Bingo  throws  his  long  legs  off  their  resting-place, 
and  sits  sideways,  staring  rather  owljshly_at  his  young  friend.. 


283  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

He  shakes  his  head  in  a  dismal  way  several  times,  and  sucks 
hard  at  his  cigar  as  he  shakes  it. 

"  For  a  bit;  but  does  it  last?     When  I  came  down  to  hunt 
up  last  June  at  the  cottage  at  Cookham 


*'  Look  here,  old  man  !  "  The  bamboo  chair  creaks  angrily 
as  Beauvayse  in  his  turn  sits  up  and  drops  his  own  long  legs 
on  either  side  of  it,  and  drives  the  foot-rest  back  under  the 
table  seat  with  a  vicious  punch.  "  Don't  remind  me  of  the 
cottage  at  Cookham,  will  you?  It's  one  of  the  things  I  want 
to  forget  just  now." 

"  You  were  as  proud  as  Punch  of  it  last  June.  Have  you 
let  it?"  pursues  Bingo,  ignoring  his  junior's  request. 

Beauvayse  yawns  with  ostentatious  weariness  of  the  subject. 

"No;  I  haven't  let  it." 

"  Ought  to  go  off  like  smoke,  properly  advertised.  Some- 
thin'  like  this  :  '  To  let,  Underwood  Cottage,  Cookham  :  a 
charmin'  Thames-side  bijou  residence.  Small  grounds  and 
large  cellar,  a  boathouse  and  a  houseboat,  stables,  a  pigeon-cote, 
and  a  private  post-box.  Duodecimo  oak  dinin'-room,  boudoir 
by  Rellis.  Ideal  nest  for  a  honeymoon,  real  thing  or  imitation. 
Might  have  become  the  real  thing  if  owner  hadn't  been  whisked 
off  in  time  to  South  Africa.'  And  a  dashed  good  job  for  him. 
For  you've  had  a  decentish  lot  of  narrow  escapes,  Toby,  my 
boy!"  pursues  the  oracular  Captain  Bingo,  disregarding  his 
junior's  forbidding  scowl,  "  and  come  out  of  a  goodish  few 
tight  places,  and  you've  got  out  of  'em,  if  I  may  say  so,  more 
through  luck  than  wit;  but  that  little  entanglement  I'm 
delicately  alludin'  to  was  one  of  the  closest  things  on  record 
in  the  career  of  a  Prodigal  Son." 

"  Thanks.  You're  uncommonly  complimentary  to-day." 
Beauvayse  pitches  away  his  cigar,  knocks  a  feather  of  ash  from 
'ihis  clean  silk  shirt,  and  folds  his  arms  resignedly  on  his  broad 
flat  chest. 

"  Upon  my  word,  I  didn't  mean  to  be.  Does  it  ever  strike 
you,"  goes  on  Captain  Bingo  doggedly,  "  that  if  that  wire  from 
the  Chief  asking  for  your  address  hadn't  found  me  at  the 
Club,  and  if  I  hadn't  run  down  and  dug  you  out  at  the  —  I 
won't  repeat  the  name  of  the  place,  since  you  don't  seem  to 
like  it  —  you'd  have  been  married  and  done  for,  old  chap,  before 
another  quarter'?  .rent,  of  the  C.  at  C.  came  due?  And,  to  put 
things  mildly,  there  would  have  been  the  mischief  to  pay  with 
your  people." 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  283 

"Yes,"  Beauvayse  agrees  rather  dreamily;  "there  would 
have  been  an  awful  lot  of  bother  with  my  people." 

"  Not  that  I  object  to  the  stage  myself/'  Captain  Bingo 
says,  waving  a  large,  tolerant  hand ;  "  and  it  seems  getting  to 
be  rather  the  fashion  to  recruit  the  female  ranks  of  the  Peerage 
from  Musical  Comedy,  and  a  prettier  and  cleverer  little  woman 
than  Lessie  .  .  .  What  are  you  stoppin'  your  ears  for?" 

"  I'm  not,"  says  a  muffled,  surly  voice.  "  It's  a — twinge  of 
toothache/'" 

"  All  I've  got  to  say  is,"  declared  Captain  Bingo,  "  that 
marriage  with  one's  equal  in  point  of  breedin'  is  sometimes  a 
blank  draw,  but.  marriage  with  one's  inferior  is  a  howling  error. 
And  if  you  had  done  as  I'd  stake  my  best  that  you  would  have 
done,  supposin'  you'd  been  left  to  loll  in  the  lap  of  the  lovely 
Lessie " 

Beauvayse  jumps  up  in  a  rage. 

"  Wrynche,  how  much  longer  do  you  think  I  can  go  on 
listening  to  this?  You're  simply  maundering,  man,  and  my 
nerves  won't  stand  it." 

''All  right.  But,  you  haven't  the  ghost  of  a  right  to  lay 
claim  to  nerves."  Captain  Bingo  obstinately  asseverates. 
"Now  look  at  me." 

"I'm  hanged  if  I  want  to!"  declares  Beauvayse.  "You're 
not  a  cheering  object."  He  drops  back  into  the  bamboo  chair 
again. 

"Flyblown,  do  I  look?"  inquires  Bingo,  with  dispassionate 
interest. 

"  Well,  yes,  decidedly,"  Beauvayse  agrees,  without  removing 
his  eyes  from  the  whitewashed  veranda-pillar  at  which  they 
blankly  stare, 

"  Streaky  yellow  in  the  whites  of  the  eyes,  and  pouchy 
under  'em?"  Captain  Bingo  demands  of  his  young  friend  with 
unmistakable  relish.  "  '  Yes '  again  ?  And  I  grouse  and 
maunder?  Of  course  I  do,  my  dear  chap!  How  can  I  help 
it?  A  married  man  who,  for  all  he  knows,  may  be  a 
widower " 

"  I  wish  to  God  that  I  knew  that  I  was  one! " 

"My  good  fellow!" 

"  You  heard  what  I  said,"  Beauvayse  flings  over  his  shoulder. 

Captain  Bingo,  his  hands  upon  his  straddling  knees,  regards 
his  junior  with  circular  eyes  and  staring  out  of  a  large,  kind, 
rather  foolish  face  of  utter  consternation. 


284  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

"That  you  wished  to  God  you  were  a  widower?" 
"Well,  I  mean  it." 

XXXIV 

"GooD  Lord!" 

There  is  a  gap  of  silence  only  broken  when  Captain  Bingo 
Says  heavily: 

"  Then  you  did  marry  the  Lavigne  after  all  ?  When  was 
it " 

"We'd  pulled  off  the  marriage  at  the  local  Registrar's  a 
fortnight  before  you  came  down  with — his  wire." 

"  By  the  Living  Tinker,  then  it  was  a  genuine  honeymoon 
after  all !  "  A  faint  grin  appears  on  Captain  Wrynche's  large 
perturbed  face. 

"  Don't  be  epigrammatic,  Wrynche."  The  dull  weariness 
in  the  young  voice  gives  place  to  quick  affront.  "  And  keep 
the  secret.  Don't  give  rne  away." 

"  Did  I  ever  give  you,  or  any  other  man  who  ever  trusted 
ne,  away?  Tell  me  that." 

Captain  Bingo  gets  up  and  covers  the  distance  between  the 
deck-chairs  with  a  single  stride,  and  puts  a  big  kind  hand  on 
the  averted  shoulder. 

"  Of  course  you  never  did."  The  boy  reaches  up  and  takes 
the  hand,  and  squeezes  it  with  the  shyness  of  the  Englishman 
who  responds  to  some  display  of  solicitude  or  affection  on  the 
part  of  a  comrade.  "  Don't  mind  my  rotting  like  this.  There 
are  times  when  one  must,  let  off  steam  or  explode." 

"  I  thought — and  so  did  a  few  others,  the  Chief  among  'em 
— that  South  Africa  had  saved  you  by  the  skin  of  your  teeth," 
says  Captain  Bingo,  smoking  vigorously,  and  driving  his  hands 
very  deep  into  his  pockets.  "  Confoundedly  odd  how  taken  in 
we  were!  I  could  have  sworn,  my  part,  that  you'd  just 
stopped  short  at " 

"  At  making  a  blithering  idiot  of  myself,"  Interpolates 
Beauvayse.  "  If  you'll  go  back  and  sit  decently  in  your  chair, 
instead  of  standing  behind  me  rattlin'  keys  and  coins  in  your 
pocket,  and  dropping  hot  cigar-ash  on  my  head,  I'll  tell  you 
how  it  happened.  Nobody  listening?  " 

"  Not  a  soul,"  says  Captain  Bingo,  padding  back  after  a 
noiseless  prowl  to  the  coffee-room  window. 

Beauvayse  grips  either  arm  of  the  chair  he  sits  in  so  fiercely 
that  thev  crack  aeain. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  285 

"  I — I  was  desperately  hard  hit  over  Lessie  a  year  ago 

"  So  were  a  lot  of  other  young  idiots." 

"  That's  a  pleasant  reflection.     They  were." 

"  Of  course,  I  " — Bingo's  large  face  becomes  very  red — "  I 

inferred  nothing  in  anyway  against  Miss  Lavigne's  chara 

Dash  it,  I  beg  your  pardon!  I  ought  to  call  her  Lady  Beau- 
vayse." 

"  Don't  trouble.  I  think  I'd  rather  you  didn't.  It  would 
rub  things  in  rather  too  much,"  says  Beauvayse,  paling  as  the 
other  had  reddened. 

"Wouldn't  it  be  as  well,"  hints  Captain  Bingo,  "to  get 
used  to  it  ?  " 

"  No,"  Beauvayse  throws  over  his  shoulder.  "  And  don't 
assume  a  delicacy  in  speaking  of  the — the  lady,  because  it's  un- 
necessary. As  I've  said,  I  was  very  much  in  love.  She  had — 
kept  house  with  a  man  I  knew,  before  we  came  together,  and 
there  may  have  been  other  affairs — for  all  I  can  tell,  at  least — 
I  should  say  most  probably."  Something  in  Captain  Bingo's 
face  seems  to  say  "  uncommonly  probably,"  though  he  utters  no 
word.  "  But  she  was  awfully  pretty,  and  I  lost  my  head." 
He  shuts  his  eyes  and  leans  back,  and  the  lines  of  his  young 
face  are  strained  and  wan.  "  I — I  lost  my  head." 

"  It's — it's  natural  enough,"  volunteers  Captain  Bingo. 

There  is  another  short  interval  of  silence  in  which  the  two 
men  on  Nixey's  veranda  see  the  same  vision — limelights  of  vary- 
ing shades  and  colour  thrown  from  different  angles  across  a 
darkened  garden-scene  where  impossible  tropical  flowers  ex- 
pand giant  petals,  and  a  spangled  water- fall  tumbles  over  the 
edge  of  a  blue  precipice  in  sparkling  foam.  The  nucleus  of 
a  cobweb  of  quivering  rays,  crossing  and  intersecting,  is  a 
dazzling  human  butterfly,  circling,  spinning,  waving  white  arms 
like  quivering  antennae,  flashing  back  the  coloured  lights  from 
the  diamonds  in  her  hair  and  on  her  bosom,  clasped  about  her 
rounded  waist  and  wrists,  gleaming  like  fireflies  from  the  folds 
of  her  diaphanous  skirts,  and  crusted  on  her  finger — a  human 
butterfly  with  great  stage  eyes  encircled  with  blue  rims,  a  small 
mouth  painted  ruby-red,  a  complexion  of  theatrical  lilies  and 
roses,  and  tiny,  twinkling  feet  that  beat  out  a  measure  to  which 
Beauvayse's  pulses  have  throbbed  madly  and  now  throb  no 
more. 

"  It  began  in  the  usual  way,"  he  goes  on,  waking  from  that 
stage  day-dream,  "  with  suppers  and  stacks  of  flowers,  and  a 
muff-chain  of  turquoise  and  brilliants,  and  ended  up  with " 


286  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

"With  an  electric  motor-brougham  and  a  flat  in  Mayfair. 
Oh,  Lord,  what  thunderin'  donkeys  we  fellows  are!  "  groans 
Captain  Bingo,  rubbing  his  head,  which  has  hair  of  a  gingery 
hue,  close-cropped  until  the  scalp  blushes  pinkly  through  it,  and 
rubbing  nothing  in  the  way  of  consolation  into  the  brain  in- 
side it. 

"  I  bought  the  Cottage  at  Cookham  as  a  surprise  for  her 
/birthday,"  goes  on  the  boy.  "  She's  a  year  or  two  older  than 
me " 

"  And  the  rest,"  blurts  out  Captain  Bingo.  But  he  drowns 
the  end  of  the  sentence  in  a  giant  sneeze.  "  Must  have  caught 
cold  last  night  without  knowin'  it.  Dashed  treacherous  cli- 
mate this,"  he  murmurs  behind  the  refuge  of  a  pocket-handker- 
chief. "And  so  you  bought  the  cottage  for  Leslie?  Another 
nibble  out  of  the  golden  cheese  that  the  old  man's  nursing 
up  for  you;  what?  And  in  thingumbob  retirement  by 
the  something-or-other  stream  you  hit  on  the  notion  of  splicing 
the  lovely  Lessie  Lavigne.  Poetry,  by  the  Living  Tinker !  " 

"  Do  you  want  to  hear  how  I  came  to  cut  my  own  throat  ?  " 
snarls  the  boy,  with  white,  haggard  anger  alternating  with  red 
misery  and  shame  in  his  young,  handsome  face ;  "  because  if 
you  do,  leave  off  playing  the  funny  clown  and  listen." 

"Never  felt  less  inclined  to  be  funny  in  my  life.  'Pon  my 
word,  I  assure  you!"  asseverates  Bingo.  "You're  simply  a 
bundle  of  irritable  nerves,  my  dear  chap,  and  that's  the  truth." 

"  You  wouldn't  wonder  if  you  knew  .  .  .  Oh,  damn  it, 
Wrynche!  " — the  young  voice  breaks  in  a  miserable  sob — "  I'm 
so  thundering  miserable.  And  all  because  there — there  was  a 
kid  coming,  and  I  did  the  straight  thing  by  its  mother." 

"  Whew !  "  Captain  Bingham  Wrynche  gives  vent  to  a  long, 
piercing,  dismal  whistle,  which  so  upsets  a  gaunt  mongrel 
prowling  for  garbage  in  the  sunny  Market  Square  that  he  puts 
up  his  nose  and  howls  in  answer.  "  Was  that  how  you  fell 

into  the "  He  is  obviously  going  to  say  "  trap,"  but  with 

exceeding  clumsiness  substitutes  "state?"  And  wonders  at 
the  thing  having  been  pulled  off  so  quietly  in  these  days,  when 
confounded  newspapers  won't  let  you  call  your  soul  your 
own. 

"That's  because  I  signed  my  name  'John  Basil  Edward 
Tobart,'  "  explains  Beauvayse ;  "  and  because  the  Registrar — 
a  fatherly  old  cock  in  a  large  check  waistcoat  like  somebody's 
father  in  a  farcical  comedy — wasn't  sufficiently  up  in  the  Peer- 
age to  be  impressed." 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  '287 

"  Weren't  there  witnesses  of  sorts  ?  "  hints  Bingo. 

"  Of  sorts.  The  housekeeper  at  the  cottage  and  my  man 
Saunders — the  discreet  Saunders  who's  with  me  here.  And  a 
fortnight  later  came  the  appointment,"  goes  on  the  boy. 
"  And — I  was  gladder  than  I  cared  to  know  at  getting  away. 
She — Lessie — meant  to  play  her  part  in  the  '  Chiffon  Girl '  up 
to  the  end  of  the  Summer  Season,  and  then  rest,  until  .  .  ." 
He  does  not  finish  the  sentence. 

"I  suppose  she's  fond  of  you — what?"  hazards  Captain 
Bingo. 

"  She  cares  a  good  deal,  poor  girl,  and  was  frightfully  cut  up 
at  my  going,  and  I  provided  for  her  thoroughly  well,  of  course, 
though  she  has  heaps  of  money  of  her  own.  And  when  I  went 
to  stay  with  my  people  for  a  night  before  sailing,  I'd  have 
broken  the — the  truth  to  my  mother  then,  only  something  in 
her  face  corked  me  tight.  From  the  moment  I  took  the  plunge 
the  consciousness  of  what  a  rotten  ass  I'd  been  had  been  growin' 
like  a  snowball  But  on  the  voyage  out  " — a  change  comes  into 
the  weary,  level  voice  in  which  Beauvayse  has  told  his  story — 
"  I  forgot  to  grouse,  and  by  the  time  we'd  lifted  the  Southern 
Cross  I  wasn't  so  much  regretting  what  I'd  done  as  wondering 
whether  I  should  ever  shoot  myself  because  I'd  done  it.  Up  in 
Rhodesia  I  forgot.  The  wonderful  champagne  air,  and  the 
rousing  hard  work,  the  keen  excitement  and  the  tingling  ex- 
pectation of  things  that  were  going  to  happen  by-and-by,  that 
have  been  happening  about  us  since  October,  were  like  pleasant 
drugs  that  keep  you  from  thinking.  I  only  remembered  now 
and  then  when  I  saw  Lessie's  photograph  hanging  on  the  wall 
of  my  Quarters,  and  the  portrait,  she  had  set  in  the  back  of  my 
sovereign-case,  that  she  and  me  were  husband  and  wife."  He 
gives  a  mirthless  laugh.  "  It  makes  so  little  impression  on  2 
fellow's  mind  somehow,  to  mooch  into  a  Registrar's  office  with 
a  woman  and  answer  a  question  or  two  put  by  a  fat,  middle- 
aged  man  in  a  shabby  office  coat,  and  give  your  name  and  say,' 
'  No,  there's  no  impediment,'  and  put  on  the  ring  and  pay  a 
fee — I  believe  it  was  seven-and-six — and  take  a  blotchy  certifi- 
cate and  walk  out — married." 

"  It  never  does  take  long,  by  Gad,"  agrees  Captain  Bingo 
with  fervour,  "  to  do  any  of  the  things  that  can't  be  undone 
again." 

"  Undone.  .  .  !  "  Beauvayse  sits  up  suddenly  and  turns  his 
miserable,  beautiful,  defiant  eyes  full  on  the  large,  perturbed 
face  of  his  listener.  "  Wrynche,  Wrynche!  I've  felt  I'd 


2.88  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

gladly  give  my  soul  to  be  able  to  undo  it,  ever  since  I  first  set 
eyes  on  Lynet.te  Mildare!  " 

Captain  Bingo  gives  vent  to  another  of  bis  loud,  dismal 
whistles.  Then  he  gets  out  of  his  chair,  large,  clumsy,  irate, 
and  begins: 

"  I  might  have  known  it,  with  a  chap  like  you.  Another 
woman's  at  the  bottom  of  all  your  bellowing.  You're  not  a 
bit  sick  at  having  brought  an  outsider — a  rank  outsider,  by 
Gad ! — into  the  family  stud ;  you're  not  a  rap  ashamed  at  havin' 
'disappointed  the  old  man's  hopes  of  you,  for  you  know  as  well 
as  I  do  that  when  you'd  done  sowin'  your  wild  oats  and  had 
your  fling,  you'd  come  in  when  he  rang  the  bell  and  marry  Lady 
Mary  Menzies.  You're  not  a  damned  scrap  sorry  at  having 
broken  your  mother's  heart,  as  though  you  mightn't,  have 
guessed  that  Lady  Foltelbarre  scented  this  marriage  in  the 
wind,  and  had  an  interview  with  the  Chief,  and  went  down  on 
her  knees  to  him — her  knees,  by  the  Living  Tinker! — to  give 
you  the  chance  of  breakin'  off  an  undesirable  connection ! " 

Beauvayse  is  out  of  his  chair  now.  "  Is  that  true — about 
my  mother  ?  "  he  demands,  blazing. 

"I'm  not  in  the  habit  of  lyin',  Lord  Beauvayse!"  states 
Captain  Bingo  huffily. 

"  Don't  fly  off  like  a  lunatic,  Bingo,  old  man.  How  did  you 
find — that — out  ?  " 

"  Your  cousin  Townham  told  me." 

"  Damn  my  cousin  Townham  for  a  dried  up,  wiggy,  pratin* 
little  scandalmonger." 

Captain  Bingo  retorts  irately: 

"  Damn  him  if  you  please ;  he's  no  friend  of  mine.  As  yours, 
what  I  ask  you  is,  between  man  and  man,  how  far  have  you 
gone  in  this  fresh  affair?" 

Beauvayse  drives  his  hands  deep  into  the  pockets  of  his 
patched  flannels,  and  says,  adjusting  a  footstool  with  his  toe 
over  a  crack  in  the  board-flooring,  as  though  the  operation  were 
a  delicate  one  upon  which  much  depended: 

"  I've  told  her  how  I  feel  where  she's  concerned,  and  that  I 
care  for  her  as  I  never  cared  yet,  and  never  shall  care,  for  any- 
one else." 

The  faint  grin  dawns  again  on  Captain  Wrynche's  large, 
kindly,  worried  face. 

"  How  many  times  have  you  met?" 

"  Only  four  or  five  times  in  all,"  says  Beauvayse.  "  I'd  set 
eyes  on  her  twice  before  I  was  introduced.  I  couldn't  rest  for 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  289 

thinking  about  her.  She  drew  me  and  drew  me.  .  .  .  And 
when  we  did  meet,  there  was  no  strangeness  between  us,  even 
from  the  first  minute.  She  just  seemed  waiting  for  what  I  had 
to  own  up.  And  when  I  spoke,  I — I  seemed  to  be  only  saying 
what  I  was  meant  to  say.  .  .  .  from  the  beginning  of  the 
world  I  don't  believe  you've  seen  her  near " 

"  I  have  seen  her  in  the  distance,  walking  with  the  Mother- 
Superior  of  the  Convent.  A  tall,  slight  girl.  Looks  like  a 
lady,"  says  Bingo,  "  and  has  jolly  hair." 

"  It's  the  colour  of  dead  leaves  in  autumn  sunshine  or  a 
squirrel's  back,"  raves  the  boy,  "  and  she's  beautiful,  Wrynche. 
My  God !  so  beautiful  that  your  heart  stops  beating  when  you 
look  into  her  face,  and  nearly  jumps  out  of  your  body  when 
a  fold  of  her  gown  brushes  against  you.  And  I  swear  there's 
no  other  woman  for  me  in  life  or  death." 

"  I  shouldn't  be  in  such  a  cast-iron  hurry  to  swear  if  I  were 
you,"  Captain  Bingo  replies  judicially.  "  And — I've  heard  you 
say  the  same  about  the  others " 

"  It  was  never  true  before.  And  she's  a  lady,"  pleads 
Beauvayse  hotly.  "A  lady  in  manners,  and  education,  and 
everything.  The  sort  of  girl  one  respects;  the  sort  of  girl  one 
can  talk  to  about  one's  mother  and  sisters " 

"  You'd  talk  about  your  mother  to  a  Fingo  washer- worn  an," 
Captain  Bingo  blurts  out.  "  Better  you  should,  than  go  hang- 
ing about  a  Convent-bred  schoolgirl  and  telling  her  you'll  never 
care  for  anybody  else,  when  you've  got  a  legal  wife,  and,  for 
all  you  know,  a  family  of  twins  at.  home  in  England." 

The  footstool,  impelled  by  a  scientific  lift  of  Beauvayse's  toe, 
flies  to  the  other  end  of  Nixey's  veranda.  "  Is  one  mistake  to 
ruin  a  man's  life?  I'll  get  a  divorce  from  my  wife.  I  will,  by 
Heaven !  " 

"  You  told  me  not  to  maunder  just  now,"  says  Bingo,  with 
ponderous  sarcasm.  "Who  is  the  maunderer,  I'd  like  to 
know  ?  By  the  Living  Tinker,  I  should  have  thought  that  this 
siege  life  would  have  put  iron  into  a  man's  blood  instead  of 
— of  Creme  de  Menthe.  Are  you  takin'  those  dashed  morphia 
tabloids  of  Taggart's  for  bad-water  collywobbles  again?  Yes? 
I  thought  as  much.  Chuck  'em  to  the  aasvogels;  stick  to  your 
work — you  can't  complain  of  its  lackin'  interest  or  variety — 
and  let  this  girl  alone.  She's  a  lady,  and  the  adopted  daughter 
of  an  old  friend  of  my  wife's,  and  don't  you  forget  it !  " 
Bingo's  gills  are  red,  and  he  puffs  and  bows  as  large,  excited, 
fleshy  men  are  wont  to.  "  If  you  do  you'll  answer  to  me!  " 


290  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"  I  tell  you,"  Beauvayse  cries,  white-hot  with  passion,  and 
raising  his  voice  incautiously,  "  that  I  mean  to  marry  her.  I 
tell  you  again  that  I  will  div " 

"  Do  you  want  the  man  in  the  street  and  every  soul  in  the 
hotel  to  know  your  private  affairs?  "  demands  Bingo.  "  If  so, 
go  on  shoutin'.  As  to  your  bein'  a  widower,  the  chances  are 
on  the  other  side.  .  .  .  Gueldersdorp  ain't  exactly  what  you 
would  call  a  healthy  place  just  now.  And  as  to  divorcin'  your 
wife,  how  do  you  know  she'll  ever  be  accommodatin'  enough  to 
give  you  reason?  And  if  she  did,  do  you  think  a  girl  brought 
up  in  a  Catholic  Convent  would  marry  you,  even  if  you  called 
to  ask  her  with  a  copy  of  the  decree  nisi  pasted  on  your  chest? 
Hang  it,  man,  your  mother's  son  ought  to  know  better! 
And — oh,  come,  I  say !  " 

For  Beauvayse  sits  down  astride  an  iron  chair,  and  lays  his 
shirt-sleeved  arms  on  the  back  rail,  and  his  golden,  crisply- 
waved  head  upon  them. 

"  I — I  love  her  so,  Wrynche.  And  to  stand  by  and  see  an- 
other man  cut  in  and  win  what  I've  lost  by  my  own  rotten 
folly  hurts  so — so  damnably."  His  mouth  is  twisted  with  pain. 

"Is  there  another  chap  who  wants  to  cut  in?"  Bingo  de- 
mands. 

"  You  know  one  gets  a  bit  clairvoyant  when  one  is  mad 
about  a  woman,"  says  Beauvayse,  lifting  his  shamed  wet  eyes 
and  haggard  young  face  from  the  pillow  of  his  folded  arms. 
"  Well,  I'm  dead  certain  that  there  is  another  man  who — who 
is  as  badly  hit  as  me." 

"  Who  is  the  other  man  ?  " 

"Saxham!" 

"  The  Doctor!  Shouldn't  have  supposed  a  fellow  of  that 
type  would  be  susceptible  now,"  says  Bingo.  "  Gives  an  un- 
compromisin'  kind  of  impression,  with  his  chin  like  the  bows 
of  an  Armoured  Destroyer,  and  his  eyebrows  like  another  chap's 
moustaches." 

"  And  eyes  like  a  pair  of  his  own  lancets  underneath  'em. 
But  he's  a  frightfully  clever  beast,"  says  Beauvayse.  "  And 
what  he  wants  in  looks  he  makes  up  in  brains.  And — and  if 
he  knew  there  was  a  scratch  against  me,  he  might  force  the 
running  and  win  hands  down.  So  hang  on  to  my  secret  by 
your  eyelids,  old  fellow,  and  don't  give  me  reason  to  be  sorry 
I  told " 

"You  have  my  word,  haven't  you?  And,  talking  about 
scratch  entries,"  says  Bingo,  inspired  by  a  sudden  rush  of  rec- 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  '291 

ollection,  "  I  ain't  so  sure  that  the  Doctor — though,  mind  you, 
this  is  between  ourselves — is  the  sort  of  giongsay  a  father  of 
strict  notions  would  be  likely  to  encourage.  Do  you  happen 
to  have  come  across  a  goggle-eyed,  potty  little  Alderman 
Brooker,  a  Town  Guardsman  who  runs  a  general  store  in  the 
Market  Place — that's  his  place  of  business  with  the  boarding 
up,  and  the  end  butted  in  by  a  Creusot  shell  that  didn't  burst, 
luckily  for  Brooker.  Well,  this  beast  buttonholed  me  months 
ago,  and  began  to  spin  a  cuffer  about  Saxham." 

"What  had  the  dirty  little  bounder  got  to  say?"  asked 
Beauvayse,  stiffening  in  disgust,  "  about  a  man  he  isn't  fit  t.o 
black  the  boots  of?" 

"  Nothing  special  nice.  Said  Saxham  had  lost  his  London 
connection  through  getting  involved  in  a  mess  with  a  woman," 
says  the  big  Dragoon. 

"  Don't  we  all  get  into  messes  of  that  kind?  What  more?  " 
demands  Beauvayse. 

"  Said  the  Doctor  had  kicked  over  the  traces  pretty  badly 
here.  Pitched  me  a  tale  of  his — Brooker's — having  often  acted 
as  the  Mayor's  Deputy  on  the  Police  Court.  Bench,  Brooker 
being  an  Alderman,  and  swore  that  he'd  had  Saxham  up  before 
him  a  dozen  times  at  least  in  the  last  three  years,  along  with 
the  Drunks  and  Disorderlies." 

"  It  sounds  like  a  hanged  lie !  " 

"  If  I  didn't  say  as  much  to  Brooker,"  responds  Captain 
Bingo,  "  I  shut  him  up  like  a  box  by  referrin'  politely  to  Glass 
Houses,  knowin'  Brooker  had  been  squiffy  himself  one  night 
on  guard,  and  by  remindin'  him  that  men  who  talk  scandal 
of  their  superior  officers  under  circumstances  like  the  present 
are  liable  to  be  Court-Martialled  and  given  beans.  And  as  the 
Chief,  and  Saxham  with  him,  dropped  on  Brooker  in  the  act  of 
smuggling  lush  into  the  trenches  the  other  day,  I  fancy  Brooker's 
teeth  are  fairly  drawn.  Though  he  swore  to  me  that  there  isn't 
a  saloon-keeper  or  a  saloon-loafer  in  the  town  that  didn't  know 
Saxham  by  the  nickname  of  the  Dop  Doctor." 

"  The  man  don't  exist  who  objects  to  hear  of  the  disqualifica- 
tions, mental  and  physical,  of  a  fellow  who  he  thought  likely 
to  enter  the  lists  with  him  in  the — in  the  dispute  for  a  woman's 
favour,"  says  Beauvayse,  with  a  pleasant  air  of  candour.  "  And 
though  the  story  sounds  like  a  lie,  as  I've  said,  there's  a  possibil- 
ity of  its  being  the  other  .thing.  I'm  sorry  for  Saxham — that 
goes  without  sayin' — though  I  don't  like  his  overbearin'  scien- 
tific side  and  his  sledge-hammer  manner.  But  that  a  man  with 


292  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

a  record  of  that  kind  should  set  his  heart  upon  a  girl  like 
Lynette  Mildare  is  horrible,  intolerable,  Wrynche,  and  while, 
for  the  man's  own  sake,  I  should  respect  his  beastly  secret,  for 
her  sake  and  in  her  interests,  and  if  I  consider  that,  he's  putting 
himself  forward  at  the  risk  of  my — my  prospects  and  my  hopes, 
I  shall  make  use  of  what  I  know." 

"You  don't  mean  you'd  split  on  the  man!  "  splutters  Bingo; 
"  because,  if  you  do " 

"  All's  fair  in  Love  and  War,"  says  Beauvayse,  with  a  ring 
of  defiance  in  his  pleasant,  boyish  voice,  and  a  gleam  of  triumph 
in  his  beautiful  sleepy  eyes.  "  And  this  is  Love  in  War. 
You've  put  a  trump  card  in  my  hand  against  Saxham,  whether 
you  meant  to  or  not,  and  when  the  time  comes,  I  shall  play  it." 

He  gets  up  and  lounges  away.  And  Captain  Bingo,  emitting 
another  wailing  whistle  as  he  slews  round  to  stare  after  the  tall, 
retreating  figure  with  the  crisp,  golden  head,  is  sure  of  nothing 
so  certainly  as  that  Beauvayse  will  play  that  trump-card.  He 
is  repentant  for  having  broached  the  Doctor's  secret  as  he  climbs 
up  by  the  narrow  iron  stair  that  leads  out  upon  the  roof  of 
Nixey's  Hotel  to  relieve  his  commanding  officer  at.  the  binocu- 
lars. 

XXXV 

You  are  invited,  the  very  Sunday  upon  which  the  previously- 
recorded  conversation  took  place,  to  make  the  acquaintance  of 
the  sprightly  P.  Blinders,  Acting  Secretary  to  Commandant 
Selig  Bronnckers,  Head  Laager,  Transvaal  Republic  and 
Orange  Free  State's  United  Forces,  Tweipans. 

P.  Blinders,  a  long-bodied,  short-legged  young  Dutch  apothe- 
cary of  the  Free  State,  with  short-sighted  eyes  behind  hugely 
magnifying  spectacles,  and  many  fiery  pimples  bursting  through 
the  earthly  crust  of  him,  possibly  testifying  to  the  presence  of 
volcanic  fires  beneath,  had  acted  in  the  clerkly  capacity  to  the 
,Volksraad  at  Groenfontein.  When  Government  did  not  sit  at 
the  Raad  Zaal,  Blinders,  as  calmly  as  any  ordinary  being  might 
have  done,  dispensed  jalap,  castor-oil,  and  pill-stick  over  the 
counter  of  his  store.  These  are  the  three  heroic  besoms  em- 
ployed by  enlightened  and  conscientious  Boer  housewives  for 
sweeping  out  the  interiors  of  their  families  thrice  in  the  year. 

Pill-stick  is  rhubarb-pill  in  the  concrete.  The  thrifty  mother 
buys  a  foot  or  so,  and  pinches  off  a  bolus  of  the  required  magni- 
tude thrice  in  the  year.  No  dosing  is  allowed  in  between;  the 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  293 

members  of  the  family  get  it  when  the  proper  time  comes  round. 
To  everyone  his  or  her  share,  not  forgetting  the  baby. 

When  P.  Blinders  came  away,  he  left  his  grandfather  to  keap 
store,  previously  explaining  to  the  aged  man  the  difference  be- 
tween hydrocyanic  acid  and  almond  essence  for  cake-flavouring, 
powders  of  corrosive  sublimate  and  Gregory's.  By  a  subtle 
transition  the  apothecary-clerk  then  became  the  epistolary  right 
hand  of  General  Bronnckers,  whose  wife,  son,  and  grandson, 
with  P.  Blinders,  made  up  his  personal  staff.  And  round  the 
Commandant's  living-waggon,  where  they  harboured,  Chaos 
reigned  and  Confusion  weltered,  and  disputes  in  many  tongues 
— English  severely  excepted — made  Babel.  And,  side  by  side 
with  the  domestic,  decent  virtues  weltered  all  the  vices  rampant 
in  the  Cities  of  The  Plain. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  site  of  Head  Laager  camp 
had  been  cunningly  chosen.  It  occupied  a  shield-shaped  plateau 
among  low,  flat-topped  hills.  The  single  street  of  Tweipans 
bounded  it  upon  the  east,  and  a  rocky  ridge  upon  the  western 
side,  that  might  have  been  the  vertebra  of  some  huge  reptile  of 
the  Diluvian  Age,  protected  camp  and  village  from  British 
shell-practice. 

Signs  of  this  were  not  lacking.  Waggons  with  shattered 
timbers  and  fantastically  twisted  irons,  broken  carts,  and  guns 
dismounted  from  their  carriages,  were  to  be  seen,  near  the  dis- 
membered or  disembowelled  bodies  of  the  beasts  that  had  drawn 
them.  Dead  horse  or  mule  or  bullock  decomposing  in  the  sun, 
seemed  to  have  nothing  of  offence  for  Republican  noses.  The 
yellow  smear  of  lyddite  was  everywhere,  and,  looking  over  the 
rock-rampart  upon  the  works  below,  you  saw  it  like  a  blight  or 
yolk  of  egg  spilt  upon  a  war-map. 

Family  parties  bivouacked  in  those  bottle-shaped  trenches 
where  each  fighting  unit  had  his  separate  box  of  provisions  sunk 
in  the  earth  beside  him,  and  his  cooking-fire  of  chips  and  dry 
dung,  and  ate  and  slept  and  smoked  and  shot  as  he  thought 
good.  And  in  despite  of  such  fires,  the  unencumbered  space 
and  pure  hill-air  notwithstanding,  the  noisome  ditches  wherein 
the  cribbed,  cabined,  and  confined  defenders  of  Gueldersdorp 
alternately  grilled  and  soaked,  were  alleys  of  musk-roses,  mar- 
vels of  sanitary  purity  compared  with  the  works  of  the  besiegers 
and  the  abominable  camps  where,  in  the  absence  of  a  noctur- 
nally  active  Quartermaster-Sergeant,  with  his  band  of  pioneers, 
stench  took  you  by  the  throat  and  nose,  while  filth  absorbed  you 
over  the  ankles. 


294  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

A  whiff  of  peculiarly  overpowering  potency,  reaching  you, 
made  you  turn  away,  and  then  the  immense  disorder  of  the 
camp  seized  and  held  your  eyes. 

Arms,  saddles,  karosses,  blankets,  clothing,  panniers  of  pro- 
visions and  boxes  of  ammunition,  were  piled  about  in  mountain- 
ous heaps.  Of  military  organization,  discipline,  authority,  law, 
as  these  are  understood  by  civilized  nations,  there  was  nothing 
whatever.  Men  in  well-worn  velveteens  and  felt  billycocks 
hobnobbed  with  men  in  the  gaudiest  uniforms  ever  evolved  by 
the  theatrical  costumier.  Green  velvet,  and  gold  lace,  topped 
by  cocked  hats  that  had  despoiled  the  ostrich  to  make  a  human 
biped  vainly  ridiculous,  adorned  Ginirals  and  Cornels  that  had 
no  rigiments  belongun'  to  'um  at  all  at  all!  and  had  come  over 
from  the  Distressful  Country  to  make  a  bould  bid  for  glory, 
with  the  'experience  of  warfare  acquired  while  lurking  behind 
hedges  and  shot-guns,  in  waiting  for  persons  in  disfavour  with 
the  Land  League. 

Patriarchs  of  eighty  years  and  callow  schoolboys  of  sixteen 
fought  side  by  side  with  the  fine  flower  and  the  lusty  prime  of 
Boer  manhood,  and  many  had  their  wives  and  children  with 
them  under  the  Transvaal  colours,  and  not  a  few  had  brought 
their  mothers.  When  an  officer  had  any  order  to  give  his  men, 
he  prefaced  it  with  the  Boer  equivalent  for  "  Hi!  "  When  the 
men  had  heard  as  much  as  they  considered  necessary,  they 
would  say,  "  Come  on;  let's  be  going,"  and  slouch  away. 

P.  Blinders,  being  a  Dutchman  of  the  Free  State,  minded 
smells  no  more  than  a  Transvaal  Boer.  Yet  it  sometimes  oc- 
curred to  him  as  odd  that  the  duties  of  a  Secretary  should  em- 
brace the  peeling  of  potatoes  and  the  performance  of  other  du- 
ties of  the  domestic  kind. 

He  was  squatting  in  the  shadow  of  the  Commandant's  living- 
waggon,  polishing  off  the  last  of  a  panful,  when  Van  Busch 
[came  along.  English  being  an  unpopular  language,  the  big 
Johannesburger  and  the  little  Free  Stater  exchanged  greetings 
in  the  Taal. 

"  Ging  oop,  and  leave  your  woman's  work  there,  and  walk 
a  piece  with  me,"  said  Van  Busch.  "  I  have  somthing  to  say 
to  you  about  my  sister  that  married  the  German  drummer, 
and  is  stopping  at  Kink's  Hotel." 

You  can  see  Van  Busch  taking  off  his  broad-brimmed  hat, 
and  knocking  the  sweat  from  the  leather  lining-band.  He  was 
dressed  in  a  black  broadcloth  tailed-coat,  flannel  shirt,  and 
cord  breeches,  and  wore  heavy  veldschoen,  and  carried  a 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  295 

Mauser  rifle,  as  everybody  else,  and  had  a  long  hunting-knife 
as  well  as  a  heavy  six-shooter  in  the  wide  canvas  pouch-belt, 
and  a  bandolier  heavy  with  cartridges.  Thus  panoplied,  he 
accurately  resembled  ten  thousand  other  men. 

But  his  dark,  overfed,  full-blooded,  whiskered  face  was  not 
that  of  an  agriculturist,  and  the  strange  light  eyes,  rust-coloured 
like  those  of  an  adder,  and,  like  the  ophidian's,  set  flush  with 
the  oddly-flattened  edges  of  their  orbits,  were  at  variance  with 
the  high,  rounded,  benevolent  temples  crowned  with  a  thinning 
brake  of  curly  hair.  The  rapacious  mouth,  with  the  thick 
scarlet  lips,  belonged  to  the  eyes. 

He  had  put  on  his  hat  again,  but  he  swept  it  off  in  a  flourish- 
ing bow,  as  Mevrouw  Bronnckers,  in  high-kilted  wincey,  a  man's 
hat  of  coarse  straw  perched  on  her  weather-beaten,  sandy- 
grey  head,  came  stumping  down  the  waggon-ladder,  calling  for 
her  potatoes.  What  was  that  lazy  bedelaar  of  a  Secretary 
about?  and  it  nearly  eleven  of  the  clock.  Didn't  he  know 
that  her  Commandant  liked  his  meals  on  time? 

Mevrouw  received  the  politeness  less  graciously  than  the 
potatoes.  That  man  with  the  eyes  and  the  greedy  red  mouth 
was  a  woman-eater,  she  knew.  Not  for  sheep  and  gear  would 
she,  grandmother  as  she  was,  trust  herself  in  house  or  barn 
alone  with  a  klant  like  that.  But  her  Commandant  had  uses 
for  him,  the  twinkling-eyed,  soft-mannered,  big  rogue.  She 
\vatched  him  walking  off  with  P.  Blinders,  for  whom  she  en- 
tertained a  distaste  grounded  on  the  knowledge  that  no  good 
ever  came  of  these  double-tongued  Free  Staters. 

And  this  one  could  write  in  the  accursed  shibboleth  of  Eng- 
land as  well  as  in  the  Taal.  She  shook  her  head  as  the  potatoes 
rattled  into  the  big  pot  hanging  over  the  fire.  And  he  walked 
out  on  Sundays  with  the  young  German  woman  who  was  maid 
to  the  refugee-widow  staying  at  Kink's  Hotel,  and  who  never , 
showed  her  nose  inside  the  Gerevoormed  Kerk,  the  godless 
thing!  or  went  out  except  by  bat-light.  Of  that  one  the 
Mevrouw  Bronnckers  had  her  opinion  also.  And  time  would 
show  who  was  right. 

Meanwhile,  Van  Busch  and  P.  Blinders,  who  had  left  the 
dorp  behind  them,  and  strolled  up  the  almost  dry  bed  of  a  sluit 
leading  up  amongst  the  hills,  conversed,  in  Sabbath  security 
from  English  artillery,  reassuring  remoteness  from  Dutch  eaves- 
droppers. And  their  theme  was  the  German  drummer's  re- 
fugee-widow who  never  went  to  kerk. 

Van  Busch,  who  found  it  helpful  in  his  business  never  to 


296  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

forget  faces,  had  met  her  on  the  rail,  months  back,  travelling 
up  first-class  from  Cape  Town.  Early  in  October  it  was, 
while  the  road  was  still  open.  And  men  who  kept  their  eyes 
skinned  went  backwards  and  forwards  and  round  and  about, 
getting  the  hang  of  things,  and  laying  up  accurate  mental  notes, 
because  the  other  kind  were  even  more  risky  to  carry  than  the 
nuggets  and  raw  dust,  that  are  hidden  in  the  padded  linings  of 
the  gold-smugglers'  heavy  garments. 

The  lady,  small,  dark,  stylishly-tailored,  and  with  bright 
black,  bird-like  eyes,  was  not  a  German  drummer's  widow 
when  Van  Busch  and  she  first  met.  She  had  chatted  in  her 
native  English  with  her  square,  bulky,  sleek-looking  fellow1- 
passenger,  well-dressed  in  grey  linen  drill  frock-coat  and 
trousers,  with  blazing  diamonds  studding  the  bosom  of  his  well- 
starched  shirt  and  linking  his  cuffs. 

The  wide  felt  hat  he  politely  removed  as  he  came  into  the 
carriage  revealed  to  Lady  Hannah  a  tall,  expansive,  wrell- 
developed  forehead.  Below  the  line  of  the  hat-rim  he  was 
burned  coffee-brown,  like  many  another  British  Colonial.  The 
observant  eye  of  "  Gold  Pen  "  took  in  the  man's  vulgarly  hand- 
some features  and  curiously  light  eyes,  and  twinkled  at  the 
flaring  jewellery  and  the  whiskers  of  obsolete  Dundreary  pat- 
tern that  stood  out  on  either  side  the  jewelled  one's  full,  smooth 
chin.  His  large,  bold,  over-red  mouth,  with  the  curling  out- 
ward flange  to  it,  gave  her  a  disagreeable  impression.  One 
would  have  been  grateful  for  a  beard  that  hid  that  mouth. 

Lady  Hannah  found  it  curiously  disquieting  until  her  fel- 
low-traveller began  to  talk,  in  a  thick,  lisping  voice,  with 
curiously  candid  and  simple  intonations.  He  presented  him- 
self, and  she  accepted  him  at  his  own  valuation,  as  a  British 
Johannesburger,  possessing  a  seat  in  Parliament,  and  consider- 
able interests  among  the  tall  chimneys  and  white  dumping- 
heaps  of  the  Rand. 

Van  Busch  called  his  efforts  to  be  ingratiating  "  sucking  up 
to  "  the  lady.  He  sucked  up,  thinking  at  first  she  might  be 
the  wife  of  the  English  field  officer  who  had  been  ordered  down 
from  the  north  to  take  over  the  Gueldersdorp  command.  Then 
he  found  she  was  only  the  grey  mare  of  an  officer  of  the 
Staff.  .  .  . 

She  plied  Van  Busch  in  his  character  of  Member  of  Parlia- 
ment, farmer  and  mine-owner,  with  questions.  Thought  she 
was  juicing  a  lot  of  information,  whereas  Van  Busch  was  the 
one  who  learned  things-  Kind  of  playing  at  being  newspaper- 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  297 

woman  she  was.  and  taking  notes  for  London  newspaper  articles 
all  the  time.  Had  laid  out  to  be  a  little  tin  imitation  of  Dora 
Carr,  or,  say,  nickel-plated  with  cast,  chasings.  Was  burning 
for  an  opening  in  the  diplomatic  go-betweening  line;  wanted  to 
dabble  in  War  Correspondence,  and  so  on.  But  Van  Busch 
gathered  that  the  biggest  egg  in  the  little  lady's  nest  of  ambi- 
tions was  the  desire  to  do  a  flutter  on  the  Secret  Service  lay. 

She  wanted  to  be  what  he  termed  a  "  slew,"  and  she  would 
have  called  a  spy.  He  riddled  to  her  dancing,  and  wearied 
before  she  did. 

"  What  Woman  has  done  Woman  may  do !  "  was  the  burden 
of  her  ceaseless  song.  And  when  she  left  the  train  at  Guelders- 
dorp,  " Au  revoir"  said  she  with  a  flash  of  her  bright  black 
eyes,  nodding  to  the  big  Colonial,  who  was  so  excessively  civil 
about  handing  out  her  dressing-case  and  travelling-bag. 
"  Many  thanks,  and  don't  give  me  away  if  you  should  happen 
to  meet  me  in  a  different  skin  one  of  these  fine  days,  Mr.  Van 
Busch." 

"  Sure,  no ;  not  I,"  said  the  burly  Johannesburger,  with  an 
effusion  of  what  looked  like  genuine  admiration.  "  By 
thunder!  when  it  comes  to  playing  the  risky  game  there's  no 
daring  to  beat  a  woman's.  Give  me  a  petticoat,  <?ay  I,  for  a 
partner  every  time." 

"Bravo!"  Her  eyes  snapped  approvingly.  She  waved  a 
little  hand  towards  a  large  pink  officer  of  the  British  Imperial 
Staff,  who  was  looking  into  all  the  first-class  compartments  in 
search  of  a  wife  who  had  been  vainly  entreated  to  remain  at 
Cape  Town.  "  There's  my  husband,  who  thinks  at  the  op- 
posite point  of  the  compass.  But  he  hasn't  your  experience — 
only  a  theory  worn  thin  by  generations  of  ancestors,  all 
chivalrous  Conservative  noodles,  who  kept  their  females  in 
figurative  cotton-wool.  Do  let  me  introduce  you.  I'd  simply 
love  to  have  him  hear  you  talk." 

Van  Busch  did  not  pant  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  the 
Military  Authorities.  He  thanked  the  impulsive  Lady 
Hannah,  but  made  haste  to  climb  back  into  the  train.  The 
big  pink  officer  recognized  the  object  of  his  search,  and  strode 
down  the  platform  bellowing  a  welcome.  As  Lady  Hannah 
waved  in  reply,  the  Johannesburger  made  a  long  arm  from  the 
window,  and  thrust  a  pencil-scrawled  card  into  the  tiny  gloved 
hand. 

"  S's'h !  Shove  that  away  somewhere  safe,"  said  Van  Busch, 
in  a  thrillingly  mysterious  whisper ;  "  and,  remember,  any  time 


298  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

you  want  to  learn  the  lay  of  the  land  and  follow  up  the  spoof 
of  movements  on  the  quiet,  that  Van  Busch,  of  the  British 
South  African  Secret  Intelligence  Bureau,  is  the  man  to  put 
you  on.  A  line  to  that  address,  care  of  W.  Bough,  will  always 
get  me.  And  with  nerve  and  josh  like  yours,  and  plenty  of 
money  for  palm-oil.  ..."  His  greedy  mouth  made  a  grin- 
ning red  gash  in  the  smug  brown  face  with  the  fine  whiskers 
of  blackish-brown.  His  cold  eyes  scintillated  and  twinkled  un- 
speakable things  at  the  little  lady  as  the  train  carried  him 
forth. 

Assuredly  Van  Busch  understood  women  no  less  thoroughly 
than  his  near  relative,  Bough.  He  knew  that  you  could  bait 
for  and  catch  the  sex  with  things  that  were  not  tangible.  Men 
wanted  to  be  made  sure  of  money  or  money's  worth.  And  for 
the  co-operation  of  P.  Blinders  in  the  adroit  little  game  by 
which  the  German  drummer's  refugee-widow  who  stayed  at 
Kink's  Hotel,  and  only  went  out  after  dark,  had  been  relieved 
of  a  handsome  sum,  Van  Busch  had  had  to  part  with  nearly 
one-third  of  the  swag.  No  wonder  he  felt  and  talked  like  a 
robbed  man. 

"  All  very  well  to  talk,"  said  P.  Blinders,  scratching  his 
newest  pimple,  and  looking  with  exaggerated  moonish  simplicity 
at  nobody  in  particular  through  his  large  round  magnifying 
spectacles.  "  But  what  could  you  have  done  without  me,  once 
the  little  Englishwoman  smelled  the  porcupine  in  the  barrel? 
When  she  drove  out  to  your  friend  Bough's  plaats  at  Haars- 
grond  in  that  spider,  pretending  she  was  your  sister  that  had 
married  a  Duitscher  drummer  in  Gueldersdorp,  and  buried 
him,  and  was  afraid  to  be  shut  up  in  the  town  with  all  those 
lustful  rooineks,  you  thought  it  would  be  enough  to  tell  her 
Staats  Police  or  Transvaal  burghers  were  after  her  to  make 
her  creep  into  a  mousehole  and  pay  you  to  keep  her  hid.  And 
it  did  work  nicely — for  a  while.  Then  the  Englishwoman  got 
angry — oh,  very  angry — and  told  you  things  that  were  not 
nice.  Either  you  should  put  her  in  the  way  of  getting  the  in- 
formation she  wanted,  or  good-bye  to  her  dear  brother,  Hendryk 
Van  Busch,  and  his  friend  Bough." 

"  For  a  pinch  of  mealies  I'd  have  let  the  little  shrew  go, 
by  thunder!"  said  the  affectionate  relative.  "But  my  good 
heart  stopped  me.  The  country  wasn't  safe  for  a  couple  of 
women  to  go  looping  about,"  he  added.  "  And  one  of  them 
with  two  hundred  pounds  of  Bank  of  England  notes  stitched 
into  the  front  of  her  stays.  .  .  ." 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  299 

"  Five  hundred  pounds,"  said  the  Secretary,  with  pleasantly 
twinkling  spectacles.  Van  Busch's  stare  was  admirable  in  its 
incredulity. 

"  Sure,  no,  brother;  not  so  much  as  that?" 

"  Trudi  told  me,"  smirked  P.  Blinders. 

"You  and  her  seem  to  be  great  and  thick  together,"  said 
Van  Busch,  with  a  flattering  leer.  The  little  ex-apothecary 
placed  his  hand  upon  his  chest,  and  said,  with  a  gleam  of 
tenderness  lighting  up  his  spectacles: 

"  I  have  sighed,  and  she  has  smiled."  He  went  on,  "  If 
your  friend  Bough  had  been  dof  enough  to  try  and  take  away 
that  load  of  banknotes  from  the  little  Englishwoman,  he  would 
have  met  trouble.  For  in  a  pocket  of  her  gown  she  carries  a 
revolver,  and  sleeps  with  it  under  her  pillow  by  night;  that  is 
another  thing  that  Trudi  has  told  me."  He  kissed  his  fingers, 
and  waved  them  in  the  direction  of  Kink's  Hotel.  "  She  is  a 
lovely  maiden !  "  He  blew  his  nose  without  the  assistance  of 
a  pocket-handkerchief,  and  continued: 

"  Of  course,  Bough  might  have  put  some  stuff  in  the  Eng- 
lishwoman's coffee  that  would  have  made  her  sleep  while  he 
stole  that  money,  or  he  might  even  have  killed  her  quietly,  and 
buried  her  on  the  farm.  But  a  man  who  does  that  is  not  so 
clever  and  so  wise  as  the  man  who  makes  a  plan  that  gets  the 
money  and  keeps  friends  all  round,  and  makes  everybody  happy 
— is  he,  now?  And  that  man  is  me,  and  that  plan  was  mine. 
From  Paulus  Blinders  you  had  genuine  information  to  sell  the 
Englishwoman,  and  when  she  has  bought  it,  paying  well  for 
it,  and  written  it  all  down  in  her  despatches  to  the  Commandant 
at  Gueldersdorp,  she  hands  the  letters  back  to  you  to  be 
smuggled  through  the  lines,  and  pays  through  the  nose  for  that 
also.  And  who  shall  say  she  is  cheated?  For  the  letters  do 
get  through  " — the  pimply  countenance  of  P.  Blinders  was 
quite  immobile,  but  the  eyes  behind  the  great  spectacles  twirled 
and  twinkled  with  infinite  meaning — "a  week  or  so  after  date,1 
perhaps,  but  what  is  that.?  Nothing — nothing  at  all." 

"  Nothing,"  agreed  Van  Busch.  The  two  men  smiled  pleas- 
antly in  each  other's  faces  for  a  minute  more.  Then  said  Van 
Busch,  with  a  loud  sigh: 

"  But  what  I  have  to  tell  you  now  is  something.  The  Eng- 
lishwoman has  got  no  more  money.  Ask  Trudi,  if  you  think 
I  lie.  And,  of  course,  the  plan  was  a  good  plan,  and  you  were 
a  smart  fellow  to  hit  on  it;  but  now  the  two  hundred  pounds 
is  gone " 


300  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"  Three  hundred  remain  to  get."  P.  Blinders  briskly  held 
up  five  stumpy  red  fingers  and  tucked  down  the  thumb  and 
little  finger,  leaving  a  trio  of  mute  witnesses  to  the  correctness 
of  his  arithmetic. 

"  No  more  remains  to  get.     The  cow  has  run  dry." 

The  brow  of  P.  Blinders  grew  scarlet  as  a  stormy  sunrise. 

"Ach!  What  is  this  I  hear?"  he  demanded  with  indigna- 
tion. "  Nothing  left,  and  I  have  not  had  but  a  hundred  and 
fifty  out  of  the  five  hundred.  There  has  been  dishonesty  some- 
where. There  have  been  tricks,  unbefitting  the  dealings  of 
scrupulous  Christian  men.  Foei,  foei !  " 

Van  Busch  stuck  his  thumbs  into  his  belt  and  smiled,  look- 
ing down  into  the  indignant  eyes  behind  the  spectacles.  Then 
he  said,  with  his  most  candid  look  and  simplest  lisp: 

"  No  tricks,  brother ;  all  fair  and  above-board.  Ask  the 
Commandant  whether  Van  Busch  is  square  or  not?  He  knows 
that  the  hundred  and  fifty  was  paid  you  honestly  on  his  ac- 
count, and  that  I  kept  but  fifty  for  myself.  And  you're  not 
the  chap  to  bilk  him  of  his  due.  Sure  no,  you'll  never  do  that, 
never!  Go  and  see  him  now,  and  settle  up.  I  had  a  talk  with 
young  Schenk  Eybel  this  morning,  and  he  says  the  answer  to  the 
screeve  you  wrote  to  the  Officer  in  Command  at  Gueldersdorp 
— to  patch  up  an  exchange  of  the  Englishwoman  for  that  slim 
kerel  of  a  Boer's  son  they  got  their  claws  on  at  the  beginning 
of  the  siege — has  come  in  under  the  white  flag  this  morning. 
Schenk  Eybel  has  a  little  plan  he  can't  put  through  without 
Walt  Slabbert,  he  says.  Loop,  brother.  You'll  find  the  old 
man  on  his  grey  pony  at  One-Tree  Redoubt." 

The  eyes  behind  the  spectacles  whirled  in  turn.  The  ex- 
apothecary  faltered: 

"  What — what  is  this  you  say?  The  money  paid  me  on  the 
General's  account — when  it  was  to  be  a  secret,  between  us.  ... 
Ach,  ach!  This  is  unfair.  And  suppose  I  have  spent  it,  how- 
shall  I  replace  it?  Do  you  wish  to  ruin  an  honest  man?" 

Van  Busch  grinned,  and  P.  Blinders  gave  up  hopelessly.  At 
least,  it  seemed  so,  for  he  turned  sharp  round  and  trotted  off 
with  sorrowfully-drooping  black  coat-tails,  in  search  of  the 
meek  grey  pony  and  the  terrible  old  man. 

But  the  front  view  of  the  Secretary  revealed  a  countenance 
whose  pimples  radiated  satisfaction,  and  spectacles  that  were 
alight  with  joy.  Much — very  much  would  P.  Blinders  have 
liked  to  have  kept  that  hundred  and  fifty,  but  his  fear  had 
proved  greater  than  his  desire. 


ONE    BRAVER    THING  301 

He  had  paid  every  tikkie  of  his  money  faithfully  to 
Bronnckers,  and  his  hands  were  metaphorically  clean,  and  his 
neck  comfortably  safe.  He  was  the  poorer  by  a  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds,  but  the  richer  in  wisdom  and  experience;  and — 
he  chuckled  at  the  thought  of  this — in  the  joy  of  knowing,  in 
postscripts  appended  to  those  despatches  of  the  Englishwoman's, 
poked  sly  sarcasm  at  the  British  Lion,  and  enjoyed  in  imagina- 
tion the  backing  of  his  spiny  tail  beneath  the  goad. 

For  another  thing  very  pleasant  to  think  of,  he  had  success- 
fully pitted  the  cunning  behind  his  giant  spectacles  against  the. 
superior  villainy  of  Mr.  Van  Busch  of  Johannesburg. 


XXXVI 

THE  German  drummer's  refugee-widow,  who  lived  behind  two 
green-shuttered,  blinded  windows  at  Kink's  Hotel,  and  was 
a  sister  of  that  good  Boer  Mijaheer  Hendryk  Van  Busch — 
"  a  sister  indeed!  " — snorted  Mevrouw  Kink ;  and  never  went 
to  the  kerk-praying,  or  put  her  nose  out  of  doors  at  all  before 
dark,  and  had  a  maid  who  did  her  hair  and  wore  her  own  in 
waves,  the  impudent  wench ;  and  whose  portmanteau,  and  bag, 
and  boots,  and  shoes,  and  skirt-bands,  had  London  tradesmen's 
labels  woven  inside  them,  was  the  only  person  in  the  village  of 
Tweipans  and  for  a  mile  round  it — good  Nederlands  measure 
— who  did  not  know  that  she  was  an  English  prisoner-of-war. 

Her  foray  in  quest  of  Secret  Information  had  had  its  hard- 
ships, as  its  alarms  and  excursions,  but  she  plumed  herself  on 
having  accomplished  something  of  what  she  set  out  to  do.  Van 
Busch,  not  counting  a  week  of  days  when  she  had  found  reason 
to  suspect  his  entire  good  faith,  had  behaved  like  a  staunch 
Johannesburger  of  British  blood  and  Imperial  sympathies.  But 
his  valuable  services  had  been  rendered  for  so  much  more  than 
nothing  that  Lady  Hannah  found  herself  in  the  condition  her 
Bingo  was  wont  to  describe  as  "  stony."  She  had  sent  for  Van 
Busch  to  tell  him  that  the  position  was  untenable.  She  would 
evacuate,  when  he  could  manage  to  get  hold  of  Nixey's  mouse- 
coloured  trotter  and  the  spider,  left  in  the  care  of  Van  Busch's 
good  friend  Bough,  at  Haargrond  Plaats. 

A  dash  for  freedom  then.  In  imagination  she  could  hear 
the  mouse-coloured  trotter's  hoofs  rattling  over  the  stony 
ground,  and  the  crack,  crack  of  the  sentries'  Mausers,  followed 
by  a  hail  of  bullets  from  the  trenches.  .  .  .  She  could  see  the 


302  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

headlines  of  the  latest  newspaper  sensation,  flaming  on  the 
greenish  gloom  of  the  room  with  the  closed  shutters  and  drawn- 
down  blinds: 

"STIRRING  STORY  FROM  THE  SEAT  OF  HOSTILITIES:  LADY 
WAR-CORRESPONDENT  RUNS  THE  GAUNTLET  OF  BOER 
MUSKETRY/' 

"Speshul.     Hextry  Spheshul!" 

Perhaps  she  would  be  mortally  wounded  by  the  time  she  got 
through  the  lines,  so  as  to  hang  in  bleeding  festoons  over  the 
splashboard,  and  sink  into  the  arms  of  the  husband  loved  better 
than  aught  save  Glory,  gasping,  as  her  heroic  spirit  fled 

"  Did  the  gracious  lady  say  she  would  have  her  boots  on  ?  " 

Trudi  got  up  from  the  flattest  and  most  uncomfortable  of 
the  two  forbidding  beds  Kink's  principal  guest-chamber  boasted, 
and  ran  her  unoccupied  needles  through  her  interminable 
knitting,  a  thick  white  cotton  sofa-cover  or  counterpane  of 
irritating  pattern — and  stood  over  against  her  employer  in  an 
attitude  of  sulky  submission.  She  was  a  square-shouldered, 
sturdily  built,  young  woman  of  twenty-five,  with  round  eyes  of 
pinky-blue  garnished  with  white  eyelashes,  no  eyebrows,  and  a 
superb  and  aggressively-brilliantined  head  of  fair  hair  elab- 
orately dressed,  waved,  and  curled. 

The  hair  was  all  attached  to  Trudi's  scalp.  Lady  Hannah 
had  lain  in  bed  morning  after  morning,  for  weary  weeks,  and 
watched  her  "  doing  it,"  and  wondered  that  any  young  feminine 
creature  with  such  arnts,  such  skin,  and  such  hair  should  be  so 
utterly  unattractive.  But.  she  had  lived  all  these  weeks  in  this 
one  room  with  Trudi,  had  languished  under  her  handmaid's 
lack  of  intelligence,  had  seen  her  eat,  wielding  her  knife  with 
marvellous  dexterity,  and,  wakeful,  tossed  the  while  she 
snored. 

And  every  morning  after  Mevrouw  Kink  had  brought  in 
coffee,  snorting  whenever  Trudi's  hair  caught  her  virtuous  eye, 
or  whenever  the  German  drummer's  widow  struck  her  as  being 
more  foreign  of  manners  and  appearance  than  usual,  Lady 
Hannah  would  call  for  her  boots,  attire  herself  as  for  a 
promenade  outdoors,  lift  the  corner  of  a  blind,  steal  a  glance 
at  the  seething,  stenching  single  street  of  Tweipans  between 
the  slats  of  the  green  shutters,  and — unpin  her  veil  and  take 
off  her  hat  without  a  word.  .  .  . 

By  eleven  o'clock  at  night  the  polyglot  confusion  of  tongues 


ONE   BRAVER    THING  303 

would  have  ceased,  the  gaudily-uniformed  swaggerers,  the  vel- 
veteen-coated, wide-awake  loafers,  the  tatterdemalions  and 
their  womenkind  of  all  types  would  have  turned  in.  Then 
Lady  Hannah,  attended  by  the  unwilling  Trudi,  was  accus- 
tomed to  venture  out  for  what  she  called,  with  some  exaggera- 
tion, "  A  whiff  of  fresh  air." 

Except  for  the  gnawing,  prowling  dogs,  the  piquets  at  either 
end  of  it,  and  the  sentries  posted  at  longish  intervals  all  down 
its  length,  the  street  of  new  brick  and  tin  and  old  wooden 
houses  that  made  Tweipans  belonged  to  Lady  Hannah  then. 
Accompanied  by  Trudi,  whose  quality  of  being  what  I  have 
heard  called  "  deaf-nosed  "  with  regard  to  noisy  smells,  she 
arrived  at  the  pitch  of  envying,  she  would  stumble  up  and 
down  amongst  the  rubbish,  or  wade  through  the  slush  if  it  had 
been  wet,  and  stop  at  favourable  points  to  search  with  her 
night-glass  for  the  greenish-blue  glow-worm  twinkles  of  distant 
Gueldersdorp,  and  wonder  whether  anybody  there  was  thinking 
of  her  under  the  white  stars  or  the  drifting  scud. 

But  what  was  Trudi  saying? 

"  The  gracious  one  cannot  have  her  boots." 

"Why  not?"  asked  Lady  Hannah,  with  languid  interest. 
Trudi  struck  the  blow. 

"  Because  she  has  none." 

"  No  boots?     Well,  then,  the  walking-shoes." 

Trudi  smiled  all  over  her  large  face.  This  placidity  should 
not  long  endure. 

"  The  gracious  one  has  no  shoes  either.  Boots  and  shoes — 
all  have  been  taken  away.  Nothing  remains  except  the  quilted 
bedroom  slippers  the  gracious  one  is  wearing.  And  it  is  im- 
possible to  walk  out  in  bedroom  slippers." 

"  I  suppose  it  is."  Lady  Hannah  yawned.  "  Well,  suppose 
you  go  and  look  for  them.  They  may  have  been  carried  away 

by  mistake,  like She  wondered  afresh  what  could  have 

become  of  that  transformation  coiffure. 

;'  There  is  no  mistake,"  Trudi  announced.  "  And — the 
gracious  lady  forgot  her  little  gun  beneath  her  pillow  this 
morning.  That  also  is  missing,"  volunteered  Trudi,  who  had 
had  her  instructions  and  scrupulously  acted  up  to  them. 

"My  revolver  has  been  stolen?"  Lady  Hannah  sprang 
from  her  chair,  made  rapid  search,  and  was  convinced.  The 
Browning  revolver  had  been  certainly  spirited  away. 

Red  patches  burned  in  her  thin  little  face,  and  her  round 
black  eyes  regained  some  of  their  lost  brightness.  Nothing 


304  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

like  a  spice  of  excitement  for  bringing  you  up  to  the  mark. 
Just  now  she  had  felt  positively  mouldy,  and  here  she  was,  her- 
self again. 

"  Nobody  came  into  the  room  in  the  night.  I  sleep  with 
the  key  round  my  neck,  and  if  they  had  opened  the  door  with 
another,  I  should  have  awakened  on  the  instant.  Nobody  has 
been  in  the  room  to-day  except  the  Frau  Kink  " — you  will  re- 
member that  a  German  drummer's  widow  would  naturally  con- 
verse in  her  defunct  spouse's  native  language — "  the  Frau  Kink, 
with  the  coffee-tray.  She  did  not  come  near  the  bed.  .  .  ." 
The  suddenness  and  force  of  the  suspicion  that  shot  up  in  Lady 
Hannah's  mind  lifted  her  up  out  of  her  chair,  and  set  her  upon 
her  feet.  "  It  must  have  been  you.  Was  it  you?  " 

She  looked  hard  at  Trudi,  and  Trudi  sank  upon  her  bed  and 
dissolved  in  noisy  weeping. 

"  Ach,  the  wickedness!  "  she  moaned.  "To  suspect  of  such 
shamelessness  a  poor  young  maiden  brought  up  in  honesty.  .  .  . 
Ach,  ach ! " 

But  Lady  Hannah  went  on: 

"  Yesterday  morning,  when  you  were  so  long  in  coming  back 
with  hot  water,  and  I  opened  the  door  and  looked  out  into  the 
passage,  I  saw  you  whispering  with  a  little  stumpy,  pimply  man, 
in  a  long-tailed  black  coat  and  large  spectacles.  Who  is  he, 
and  of  what  were  you  talking?" 

Trudi  did  not  at  all  regard  the  verbal  sketch  of  P.  Blinders 
as  a  correct  one,  but  though  her  love  was  blind  to  his  pimples 
and  ignored  his  stumpiness,  she  could  not  deny  the  spectacles, 
which  were  to  her  as  peepholes  affording  visions  to  a  blissful 
married  future. 

"  He  is  a  Herr  who  brought  me  news  from  my  Mutti  at 
home  in  Germany.  She  is  sick,  and  my  father  also,  and  all 
my  little  brothers  and  sisters  are  sick  too,"  gulped  Trudi, 
sobbing  and  wallowing  and  rasping  her  flushed  features  against 
the  knobbly  counterpane  of  the  most  uncomfortable  of  the  two 
beds,  "  because  they  hear  that  I  am  in  this  place,  and  they  so 
greatly  fear  that  I  will  be  dead." 

"  You  aren't  dead  yet.  And  you  told  me  when  I  engaged 
you  that  you  were  an  orphan  brought  up  by  an  aunt." 

"  Pay  me  my  vage,"  demanded  Trudi,  lifting  a  defiant  and 
perfectly  dry  countenance,  and  launching  the  utterance  in  the 
forbidden  English  language,  "  and  I  vill  now  go.  I  vish  not 
to  stop  here  longer." 

"  Very  well,  but  where  are  you  going  ?  " 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  305 

"That,"  remarked  Trudi,  tossing  her  elaborately-dressed 
head  and  relapsing  into  her  native  language,  "  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  gracious  lady." 

There  was  insolent  triumph  and  unveiled  spite  in  the  large 
face  attached  to  the  elaborate  coiffure.  The  gracious  lady, 
realizing  that  Trudi  formed  the  one  link  between  herself  and 
the  rough,  strange,  suspicious,  unfriendly  male  world  outside, 
pocketed  her  pride  to  temporize.  Let  Trudi  remain  as  com- 
panion— attendant — to  the  German  refugee- widow  yet  an- 
other week,  and  the  month's  due  of  wages,  already  trebled  in 
virtue  of  a  service  involving  risk,  should  be  substantially  in- 
creased. .  .  .  But  Trudi  only  snorted  and  shook  her  head, 
and  Lady  Hannah  found  herself  confronting,  not  only  a  rat 
determined  upon  abandoning  a  sinking  ship,  but  malignantly 
inclined  to  hasten  the  vessel's  foundering. 

What  was  to  be  done?  It  is  quite  possible  to  be  brave, 
adventurous,  and  daring  without  a  revolver,  its  absence  may 
even  impart  a  faint  sense  of  relief  as  being  no  longer  under 
the  necessity  of  shooting  somebody  with  it  at  a  pinch,  but 
without  boots  or  shoes,  and  a  Trudi  to  put  them  on,  Lady 
Hannah  found  herself  at  a  nonplus.  To  conceal  the  fact 
from  the  rejoicing  Trudi,  she  moved  to  the  window  and  drew 
the  blind  aside,  and  was  instantly  confronted  with  a  row  of 
round,  staring  eyes,  the  nose  belonging  to  each  pair  being 
flattened  against  the  glass. 

"  Oh ! "  exclaimed  Lady  Hannah,  dropping  the  blind  in 
consternation  at  this  manifestation  of  public  interest.  A 
snorting  chuckle  from  the  malignant  Trudi  fanned  the  little 
lady's  waning  courage  into  flame.  She  crossed  the  room  and 
turned  the  door-handle. 

The  door  was  locked  from  the  outside,  the  key  having  been 
removed  to  accommodate  the  eye  of  Mevrouw  Kink,  who 
reluctantly  removed  it  to  unlock  the  door,  and  announce  that 
Myjnheer  Van  Busch  had  asked  to  see  his  sister,  as  she  ushered 
the  visitor  in. 

Sisters  are  not  sensitive  as  a  rule  to  subtle  alterations  in 
the  regard  of  their  brothers,  but  the  German  drummer's  re- 
fugee-widow could  not  but  read  in  the  face  and  demeanour 
of  her  relative  a  perceptible  diminution  of  interest  in  a  woman 
who  had  no  more  money.  .  .  .  He  kept  on  his  broad-brimmed 
hat  and  pulled  at  his  bushy  whiskers  as  he  exchanged  a  pal- 
pable wink  with  Trudi,  who  was  accustomed,  when  the 
gracious  lady's  brother  called,  to  retire  with  her  knitting  be- 


3c6  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

hind  the  shiny  American  cloth-covered  screen  that  coyly 
shielded  the  washstand  from  a  visitor's  eye. 

Those  flat,  light  eyes  of  the  visitor's  twinkled  oddly  as  Lady 
Hannah's  indignant  whisper  told  of  the  missing  footgear  and 
the  vanished  revolver,  and  her  conviction  that  the  screened 
knitter  was  the  active  agent  in  their  spiriting  away. 

"  You  believe  the  girl's  slewed  on  you,  eh,  and  that  things 
jare  going  to  pan  out  rough?  Well,  sure,  that's  a  pity!  "  The 
big  man  lolled  against  the  deal  table  covered  with  a  cloth 
reproducing  in  crude  aniline  colours,  trying  to  the  complexion, 
but  gratifying  to  the  patriotic  soul  of  Mevrouw  Kink,  the  red, 
white,  and  blue  stripes  of  the  Vierkleur,  with  the  green  staff- 
line  carried  all  round  as  an  ornamental  border.  "  And  I'd 
not  wonder  but  you  were  right."  He  stuck  his  thumbs  in 
his  belt,  and  asked,  with  his  hatted  head  on  one  side  and  a 
jeering  grin  on  his  bold  red  mouth:  "  So,  now,  and  what  did 
you  think  to  do  ?  " 

Lady  Hannah  controlled  an  impulse  to  knock  off  the  big 
man's  broad-brimmed  felt,  and  even  smiled  back  in  the  grin- 
ning face.  .  .  .  One  very  little  lady  can  hold  a  great  deal  of 
anger  and  resentment  without,  spilling  any  over,  if  she  is 
thoroughly  convinced  that  it  would  be  imprudent  as  well  as 
useless  to  display  either. 

"  As  you  gather,  I  intend  returning  to  Gueldersdorp  to- 
morrow at  latest.  I  shall  not  take  my  maid,  as  she  wishes  for 
her  own  reasons  to  remain  behind.  Please  have  the  mare  and 
spider  here  by  mid-day  coffee-tirrve.  We  can  drive  north  to- 
wards Haargrond  and  double  back  when  we're  beyond  the 
lines,  as  the  coursed  hare  would  do." 

Van  Busch's  red  mouth  gleamed,  curved  back  from  his 
tobacco-stained  teeth.  He  said  with  meaning: 

"  Boers  shoot  hares — not  run  them." 

"  They  may  shoot  or  not  shoot,"  proclaimed  Lady  Hannah. 
"  I  start  to-morrow." 

"Without  boots  or  shoes?"  asked  the  red-edged,  yellow- 
fanged  smile. 

"  Barefoot  if  I  must,"  she  answered,  with  all  the  more  spirit 
that  she  felt,  like  the  hare  struggling  in  a  spring.  "  Please 
send  for  the  mare  and  the  trap.  I  leave  this  place  to-morrow." 

"  The  mare  and  the  spider  have  been  commandeered  for  the 
use  of  the  United  Republics,"  said  Van  Busah.  As  the  angry 
colour  flamed  up  in  Lady  Hannah's  small,  pale  cheeks,  he 
added,  shrugging  his  shoulders  and  spreading  his  hands: 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  307 

"Bough  did  his  best  to  save  them,  for  you,  no  bounce!  But 
could  one  man  do  anything  against  so  many?  Sure  no,  noth- 
ing at  all !  " 

She  lost  patience,  and  stamped  her  little  foot  in  its  quilted 
satin  slipper. 

"  Do  you  suppose  I  haven't  guessed  by  this  time  that  Bough 
the  Afrikander  and  Van  Busch  the  British- Johannesburger 
are  one  Boer  when  it  suits  them  both  ?  "  ( 

His  hand,  copper-brown  as  his  face,  and  with  the  marks 
of  old  tattooing  obliterated  by  an  acid  burn,  jerked  as  he 
raised  it  to  stroke  and  feel  his  whiskers.  Something  else  upon 
the  hand,  in  the  sharpened  state  of  all  her  senses,  struck  out  a 
spark  of  old  association,  and  recalled  a  name  once  known. 

"How  many  men  are  you,  Mr.  Van  Busch  or  Bough? 
You  provoke  the  question  when  I  see  you  wearing  the  Mildare 
crest  and  coat-of-arms." 

He  had  turned  the  deepljr-engraved  sard  with  his  brown 
thumb  and  clenched  his  fist  upon  it,  but  as  swiftly  changed 
his  mind,  and  took  off  the  ring  and  handed  it  to  her. 

"  I  had  this  ring  off  Bough,  that's  a  real  live  man,  and  a 
thundering  good  pal  of  mine,  for  all  your  funning.  The  chap 
it  belonged  to  died  at  a  farm  Bough  owned  once.  Somewhere 
in  Natal  it  might  have  been.  And  the  bloke  who  died  there 
was  a  big  bug  in  England,  Bough  always  thought.  But  he 
came  tramping,  and  hauled  up  with  hardly  duds  to  his  back 
or  leather  to  his  feet.  Sick,  too,  and  coughing  like  a  sheep 
with  the  rinderpest.  Bough  was  kind  to  him,  but  he  got 
worse  and  worse.  One  night  Bough  was  sitting  up  with 
him  reading  the  Bible,  when  he  made  signs.  '  Take  this  ring 
off  of  my  finger  and  keep  it,'  says  he.  '  I've  got  something  else 
to  give  you,  but  I  reckon  the  Almighty'll  foot  your  bill,  for 
you're  a  first-class  Christian,  if  ever  there  was  one.'  Then 
he  went  in,  and  Bough  buried  him  in  regular  fancy  style 

"  And  sent  the  girl  to  the  nuns  at  Gueldersdorp,  or  was  she 
there  already  ?  " 

Bough  was  in  the  act  of  taking  back  the  sardonyx  signet- 
ring.  His  hand  jerked  again,  so  sharply  that  the  ring  was 
jerked  into  the  air,  and  fell  to  the  floor,  and  relied  under  the 
table.  He  stooped  and  reached  for  it,  and  asked,  with  his  face 
hidden  by  the  patriotic  tablecloth: 

"  What  girl  do  you  mean  ?  " 

His  dark  face  was  purple-brown  with  the  exertion  of  stoop- 
ing as  he  rose  up.  Lady  Hannah  answered: 


308  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

"  The  Mother-Superior  of  the  Convent  of  the  Holy  Way 
at  Gueldersdorp  has  an  orphan  ward,  a  singularly  lovely  girl 
of  nineteen  or  twenty,  whose  surname  is  Mildare.  And  it 
struck  me  just  now — I  don't  know  why  now,  and  never  be- 
fore— that  she  might  be " 

"  Bough  never  said  nothing  to  me  about  any  girl.  What 
jlike  is  this  one?"  Van  Busch  twisted  the  ring  about  his 
'little  finger,  and  spoke  with  a  more  sluggish  lisp  and  slurring 
'of  the  consonants  than  even  was  usual  with  him.  "  Is  she 
jshort  and  square,  with  black  hair  and  round  blue  eyes,  and 
red  cheeks  and  thick  ankles?" 

Lady  Hannah,  despite  all  her  recently-gained  experience  of 
Van  Busch,  had  not  mastered  his  method  of  eliciting  informa- 
tion. 

"  Miss  Mildare  is  absolutely  the  opposite  of  your  descrip- 
tion," she  declared.  "  She  is  quite  tall,  and  very  slight  and 
pale,  with  slender  hands  and  feet,  and  reddish-bronze  hair,  and 
eyes  the  colour  of  yellow  topaz  or  old  honey,  with  wonderful 

black  lashes.  ...  I  have  never  seen  anything  to  compare " 

She  stopped. 

What  strange  eyes  the  man  had,  full  of  lines  radiating  from 
the  tin-point  pupils,  scintillating  like  a  snake's.  .  .  .  He  said, 
in  his  thick,  lisping  way: 

"  A  beauty,  eh  ?  And  how  long  might  the  nuns  have  had 
her?" 

"  The  Mayor's  wife  told  me  she  has  been  under  the  care 
of  the  Convent  ladies  nearly  seven  years." 

His  brown  full  face  looked  solid,  and  his  eyes  veiled  them- 
selves behind  a  glassy  film.  He  was  thinking,  as  he  said: 

"And  her  name   is  Mildare,  eh?     And  you  know  her?" 

"  I  have  met  her  once.  She  was  introduced  to  me  as  Miss 
Lynette  Mildare.  But  just,  now  I  find  my  own  affairs  un- 
pleasantly absorbing.  I  am  suspected  in  this  place,  Mr.  Van 
Busch,  and  if  not  actually  a  prisoner,  am  certainly  under 
restraint.  For  how  much  money  down  will  you  undertake  to 
extricate  me  from  this  position,  and  convey  me  back  to 
Gueldersdorp  ?  " 

He  shook  his  head,  and  for  once  the  scent  of  gain  did  not 
rouse  his  predatory  appetite.  He  was  wondering  how  it 
should  never  have  occurred  to  him  before  that  the  scared  little 
white-faced  thing  might  have  fallen  into  kindly  hands,  and 
been  nursed  and  cockered  up  and  made  a  lady  of?  He  was 
puzzled  to  account  for  her  remembering  the  name  that  had 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  309 

belonged  to  the  man  whose  grave  was  at  the  foot  of  the  Little 
Kopje.  He  was  conscious  of  an  itching  curiosity  to  find  out 
for  his  friend  Bough  whether  it  really  was  the  Kid  or  no? 
What  was  the  little  fool  of  a  woman  saying  in  her  shrill 
voice  ? 

"  It  would  be  burning  your  boats,  I  am  quite  aware.  But 

if  it  pays  to  burn  them "  she  suggested,  with  her  black 

eyes  probing  vainly  in  the  shallow  ones. 

He  roused  himself. 

"  A  thousand  pounds,  English.  You've  not  the  money 
here?" 

"  No." 

"Or  a  cheque?" 

Her  laugh  jangled  contemptuously. 

"  Do  you  Boer  spies  carry  a  cheque-book — upon  Secret 
Service  ?  " 

"  I  am  no  Boer,  but  an  honest,  square-dealing  Britisher. 
How  often  have  I  to  tell  you  that?  Do  you  suppose  you 
are  a  prisoner  here  because  I  slewed  on  you  ?  Wrong,  by 
God!  Perhaps  I  kept  things  back  a  bit  for  fear  you  would 
cut  up,  as  women  do,  and  go  into  screeching-fits.  Sure  now, 
that's  what  any  man  would  have  done."  His  tone  of  injury 
was  excellently  feigned,  and  his  lisp  was  simplicity  itself. 
"  And  to  call  me  a  dirty  spy,  when  I  got  you  first-hand  in- 
formation, and  ran  your  letters  through  to  Gueldersdorp,  at 
the  risk  of  my  blooming  neck.  .  .  .  Well,  you'll  be  ashamed 
when  you  get  back  there  and  see  those  letters,  that's  what  you 
will,  sure!" 

"  The  letters  got  through — yes.  But  did  they  get  through 
in  time  to  be  of  use  ?  " 

The  little  she-devil  suspected  the  truth.  He  stroked  his 
whiskers  and  scraped  his  foot  upon  the  floor,  and  said  in  his 
blandest  lisp: 

"  They  got  through  in  useful  time.  I'll  kiss  the  Book  and 
swear  it,  if  you  want  me." 

How  deal  with  a  knave  like  this,  who  popped  in  and  out 
of  holes  like  a  rabbit,  and  wriggled  and  writhed  like  a  snake? 
Lady  Hannah  knew  an  immense  yearning  for  the  absent 
Bingo,  husband  of  limjited  intellectual  capacity,  man  of  superior 
muscular  development,  doughty  in  the  use  of  that  primitive 
weapon  of  punishment,  the  doubled  human  fist. 

"  In  useful  time  ?  Useful  Gueldersdorp  time  or  useful 
Tweipans  time?  That  is  what  I  want  to  get  at." 


3io  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"Oh,  hell!  how  do  I  know?"  He  had  turned  sulky  and 
scowling,  but  her  blood  was  fairly  up. 

"  I  know  that  you  have  successfully  swindled  me  out  of 
five  hundred  pounds.  I  know  that  when  I  met  you  on  the 
train  four  months  back  you  shaped  your  plans  and  baited  a 
trap- 

"  To  catch  a  silly  woman."  His  scarlet  lips  rolled  back 
from  his  tobacco-stained  teeth.  His  eyes  were  intolerable. 
"Ay,  maybe  I  did.  And  what's  to  say?" 

"  I  say  you  are  a  blackguard,  Mr.  Bough  Van  Busch!" 

The  dark  face  with  the  light  eyes  underwent  a  murderous 
change.  He  glanced  over  his  shoulders  right  and  left,  and 
took  a  step  towards  her,  carrying  out  the  movement  suddenly, 
as  a  tarantula  darts  upon  its  prey.  Before  the  thick  brown 
muscular  fingers  had  choked  the  scream  that  rose  in  her  throat, 
the  key  crashed  in  the  lock,  and  the  door  was  violently  kicked 
open,  admitting  .  .  . 

No  portrait  is  required  of  that  burly,  bald-browed,  sharp- 
eyed,  grizzle-bearded,  square-jawed  farmer,  of  the  bronzed  and 
sun-cracked  countenance,  implacable  under  the  slouch-hat  with 
the  orange-leather  band,  his  old  green  overcoat,  and  coarse 
corduroy  breeches,  and  roughly  tanned  leather  boots,  with 
heavy,  old-fashioned  spurs,  the  husk  of  a  fierce,  and  indomit- 
able, and  relentless  leader,  twinned  with  a  quiet  family-man  of 
bucolic  tastes  and  patriarchal  habits. 

Bough,  broader  by  inches  and  taller  by  half  a  head, 
dwindled,  seen  in  juxtaposition  with  this  man  of  the  iron 
will  and  the  leader's  temperament,  to  a  flabby,  dwarfish,  and 
petty  being.  The  fierce  grey  eyes  took  him  in,  and  read  him, 
and  dropped  him  and  fastened  on  the  little  Englishwoman,  as 
the  great  boots  tramped  heavily  across  the  floor,  and  the  great 
voice  roared,  speaking  in  the  Taal: 

"Pull  up  that  blind!  Voor  den  donder!  Shall  we  be 
mice,  that  sit  and  squeak  in  the  dark?" 

Down  came  the  Mevrouw  Kink's  square  of  glazed  yellow 
calico,  roller,  cord,  and  all,  at  the  impatient  wrench  of  the 
big,  heavy  hand.  .  .  .  The  window  was  blocked  wit,h  heavy 
bodies,  topped  by  brown,  white,  or  yellow  faces ;  the  street 
was  a  sea  of  them,  all  staring  with  greedy,  curious  eyes  at 
the  little  Englishwoman  who  was  a  prisoner,  and  the  big  man 
who  ruled  them  by  Fear.  His  angry  grey  eyes  blazed  at  the 
gapers,  and  the  crowd  surged  back  a  foot  or  two.  Then  the 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  311 

fierce  eyes  darted  back  at  pale  Lady  Hannah,  and  the  roaring 
voice  began  again : 

"  You  who  came  here  in  disguise,  with  a  false  tale  and  false 
hair " 

Lady  Hannah  jumped  in  her  bedroom  slippers,  and  crim- 
soned to  her  natural  coiffure,  as  the  missing  transformation, 
appallingly  out  of  wave,  was  plucked  from  the  baggy  pocket 
of  the  old  queer  overcoat,  and  brandished  before  her  astonished 
eyes.  Writhing  with  the  dual  impulse  to  shriek  and  clutch, 
no  wonder  she  appeared  a  conscience-stricken  creature  in  that 
great  man's  watchful  eyes.  His  big  voice  shook  her  and  shook 
the  room  as  he  thundered : 

"  Woman,  you  are  no  widow  of  a  Duitscher  drummer,  but 
the  vrouw  of  a  field-cornet  of  the  Army  of  Groor.  Brittanje. 
He  holds  a  graafschap  in  Engeland  " — a  mistake  on  the  part 
of  the  General's  informant — •"  and  is  hand-in-glove  with  the 
Engelsch  Commandant  at  Gueldersdorp."  Not  so  far  from 
the  truth !  thought  Lady  Hannah.  "  Would  he  spy  out  the 
land,  let  him  come  himself  next  time.  Boers  hide  not  behind 
their  wives'  petticoats  when  there  is  such  business  to  be  done." 

In  defence  of  blameless  Bingo  the  hysterical  little  woman 
found  voice  to  say: 

"  He — didn't  know  I  was  coming." 

"What  says  she?" 

Before  Van  Busch  could  bestir  himself  to  interpret,  Lady 
Hannah  had  repeated  her  words  in  faulty  Dutch. 

"  So !  Engelsch  mevrouws  disobey  their  husbands,  it 
seems?"  Were  the  fierce,  bloodshot  grey  eyes  really  capable 
of  a  twinkle  ?  "  We  Boers  have  a  cure  for  that.  Green 
reim,  well  laid  on,  after  the  third  caution,  teaches  our  wives 
to  fib  and  deceive  no  more." 

"  You're  wrong,  sir." 

"Wrong,  do  you  say?     Hoe?" 

"  What  the  green  reim  does  teach  them,"  exclaimed  Lady 
Hannah,  secretly  aghast  at  her  own  temerity,  "  is,  not  to  be 
found  out  next  time." 

He  gave  a  wooden  chuckle,  but  his  regard  was  as  menacing 
and  the  voice  as  gruff  as  ever. 

"  I  make  no  mouth-play  with  words.  I  talk  in  men  and 
guns,  and  there  are  half  a  dozen  among  the  Engelsch,  niet 
mier,  that  know  how  to  talk  back.  There  are  one  or  two 
others  that  are  duyvels,  and  not  men.  And  the  worst  duyvel 


312  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

of  all  " — he  waved  the  big  hand  westward — "  is  he  over  there 
at  Gueldersdorp." 

She  mentally  registered  the  compliment. 

"  You  are  a  woman  who  writes  for  the  Engelsch  newspapers 
that  are  full  of  shameless  tales  about  the  Boers."  He  spat 
copiously  upon  the  floor,  and  the  big  voice  became  a  bellow. 
"  Lies,  lies !  I  have  had  them  read  to  me,  and  the  people 
who  make  them  should  be  shot.  Hear  you  now.  You  shall 
write  to  them  and  say:  '  Selig  Bronnckers  is  a  merciful  man  and 
a  just.  He  is  not  as  zwart  as  he  is  painted.  He  caught  me 
mousing  round  his  hoofd  laager  at  Tweipans — and  what  does 
he  do  ? ' '  The  pause  was  impressive.  Then  the  roaring  voice 
resumed : 

'  He  sends  me  marching  down  to  the  gaol  at  Gwenfon- 
tein,  that  is  packed  with  dirty  white  and  dirty  coloured  schelms 
until  there  is  not  room  for  one  more " 

He  named  the  homely  parasite  hymned  by  Burns  .  .   . 

— "  '  Or  he  packs  me  up  to  Oom  Paul  at  Pretoria,  chained 
to  the  waggon-tail  like  the  others.'  .  .  ." 

Lady  Hannah  wondered,  while  the  stuffy  room  spun  round 
her,  who  the  others  were. 

"  Geen,  I  will  tell  you  what  he  does."  He  pitched  the 
crumpled  transformation  contemptuously  into  the  corner. 
"  He  writes  to  the  Engelsch  Commandant  at  Gueldersdorp 
and  says:  '  I  have  here  a  silly  female  thing  that  is  no  use  to 
me.  Take  her  you,  and  give  me  in  exchange  a  man  of 
mine.'  .  .  ." 

"  And  he  ...  what,  does  .  .  .  ?  "  She  could  get  out  noth- 
ing more. 

"  He  agrees.  Mevrouw  Vrynks  " — "  Dutch  for  Wrynche," 
thought  Lady  Hannah  dizzily — •"  you  will  now  pay  the 
Mevrouw  Kink  what  is  owing  for  her  amiable  entertain- 
ment, and  you  will  start  for  Gueldersdorp  in  ten  minutes' 
time." 

The  roaring  voice  of  the  big  fierce-eyed  man  sounded 
lovelier  than  the  swan-song  of  De  Rezke.  She  faltered,  with 
her  joyful  heart  leaping  at.  the  gates  of  utterance: 

"  The — mare  and  spider.  You  will  be  so  kind  as  to  return 
them ?" 

His  face  became  as  a  human  countenance  rudely  carved  in 
seasoned  oak. 

"  I  know  nothing  of  a  mare  and  spider,"  blared  the  great 
voice. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  313 

She  looked  him  straight  between  the  hot  fierce  eyes,  and 
spoke  out  pluckily. 

"  They  are  not  my  property.  I  hired  the  trap  and  the 
trotter  from  a  hotel-keeper  at  Gueldersdorp.  And  Mr.  Van 
Busch  tells  me  that  they  have  recently  been  comm,andeered  for 
the  service  of  the  United  Forces  of  the  Transvaal  and  Orange 
Free  State." 

"  So !  .  .  .  Well,  that  is  what  I  would  have  done,  if  they 
were  worth  having.  Where  is  Van  Busch  ? "  The  angry 
glance  pounced  on  him  in  the  remote  corner  to  which  that 
patriot  had  modestly  retired.  Van  Busch  cringed  forwards, 
hat  in  hand,  explaining: 

"  The  Engelish  Mevrouw  mistakes,  Myjnheer.  Sure,  now, 
I  never  told  her  anything  of  that  kind.  How  could  I,  when 
there  was  no  mare  and  no  spider?  Didn't  I  drive  her  and 
the  other  woman  over  from  Haargrond,  with  Bough's  little 
beast  pulling  in  a  cart  of  my  own?  Call  the  other  woman, 
and  she  will  tell  you  it  was  as  I  say." 

Lady  Hannah,  supremely  disdainful,  turned  her  back  upon 
the  liar.  .  .  . 

"  So,  then,  you  are  not  willing  to  go  back  in  a  veld 
waggon?"  demanded  the  bullying  voice. 

"  I'm  willing  to  go  back  in  anything  that,  isn't  a  coffin,"  she 
declared. 

He  gave  the  wooden  chuckle,  swung  about  and  trampled  to 
the  door,  calling  to  Van  Busch  in  the  tone  of  a  dog's  master: 

"  Here,  you  .  .  .! " 

Van  Busch  followed,  wriggling  as  obsequiously  as  the  dog 
with  a  stolen  mutton-chop  upon  his  conscience.  The  door 
slammed,  the  key  turned  roughly  in  the  lock.  Lady  Hannah, 
oblivious  of  the  absence  of  outdoor  footwear,  flew  joyously  to 
cram  a  few  belongings  into  her  travelling-bag  and  resume  her 
discarded  hat. 

Outside  in  the  street,  the  motley  crowd  having  melted  away 
upon  his  appearance,  the  Commandant  was  saying  to  Van 
Busch: 

"  It  is  a  pity  that  the  Engelschwoman's  story  was  not  true 
about  that  mare  and  spider.  For  if  a  mare  and  spider  there 
had  been,  you  might  perhaps  have  kept  them  for  your 
trouble " 

— "  Now  I  come  to  think  of  it,  Myjnheer  Commandant," 
said  Van  Busch  in  a  hurry,  "perhaps  the  woman  was  not 


314  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

lying,  after  all.  Bough  has  a  mouse-coloured  trotter  in  the 
stables  at  Haargrond  Plaats,  and  a  spider  stands  under  the 
waggon-shed  in  the  yard.  If  they  are  hers,  I'll  let  Bough 
know  Myjnheer  Commandant  said  I  was  to  have  them.  He'll 
make  no  bones  about  parting  then.  Sure,  no!  he'll  never 
dare  to." 

"  I  will  send  a  couple  of  my  burghers  with  you  to  take 
care  he  does  not,"  said  the  Commandant,  in  what  was  for 
the  redoubtable  Bronnckers  an  easy  tone.  "  It  is  unlucky," 
he  added  pleasantly,  "  that  you  were  such  a  verdoemte  clever 
knave  as  to  tell  the  Engelschwoman  I  had  commandeered  both 
beast  and  vehicle  for  Republics'  use.  Because  now  I  will  do 
it,  look  you.  No  Boer's  son  that  lives,  by  the  Lord !  will  I 
suffer  to  make  Selig  Bronnckers  out  a  liar."  He  added,  as 
Van  Busch  salaamed  and  squirmed  with  more  than  Oriental 
submissiveness,  "  Least  of  all  a  sneaking  Afrikander  schelm 
like  you.  And  now,  about  the  money  ?  " 

"  Excellentie,"  lisped  Van  Busch,  smiling  his  oily  brown 
face  into  ingratiating  creases  .  .  . 

"  I  am  no  Excellentie.  .  .  .  Of  how  much  money,  properly 
belonging  to  the  Republics'  war-chest,  have  you  cheated  this 
little  fool  of  an  Engelschwoman  ?  " 

"  Five  weeks  back,  Myjnheer  Commandant,"  bleated  Van 
Busch,  "  I  had  from  her  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  which 
I  swear  as  an  honest  man  has  been  handed  over  to  Myjnheer 
Blinders " 

"  He  has  accounted  to  me." 

"Five  weeks  back ?"  Van  Busch  hinted. 

"  He  has  accounted  for  it  five  weeks  back." 

There  are  men  who  possess  all  the  will  to  be  rogues,  but 
have  not  the  requisite  courage.  Such  a  man  was  Blinders, 
who  emerged  plus  a  sweetheart,  the  approval  of  his  Com- 
mandant, and  the  eclat  of  having  chaffed  the  British  Lion, 
out  of  the  affair  that  was  to  prove  so  expensive  to  Mr.  Van 
Busch. 

"  And  " — the  big  voice  trumpeted,  as  Van  Busch,  like  a 
stout-pinned  butterfly,  twiddled,  transfixed  by  the  glare  of  the 
savage  eyes — "  you  will  now  account  to  me  for  the  rest." 

Van  Busch  faltered  with  a  sickly  smile: 

"  Fifty  more,  Myjnheer,  that  I  was  bringing  you  my- 
self  » 

"  One  hundred  and  fifty  you  have  paid  me,  and  fifty  you 
were  going  to  pay  me.  Dat  spreekt — but  where  are  the  hun- 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  3*5 

dreds  you  have  paid,  Van  Busch?"  bellowed  the  roaring  voice. 
"  Does  not  my  old  man-baboon  at  home  pouch  six  walnuts  for 
every  one  that  his  wife  gets  to  share  with  her  kind?  When 
I  want  to  make  the  big  thief  spit  them  out,  I  squeeze  him  by 
the  neck.  So,  voor  den  donder!  will  I  do  to  you,  Only, 
geloof  mij,  I  will  not  do  it  in  play.  Pay  Blinders  the  other 
five  hundred  pounds  before  kerk-time.  If  you  haven't  got  the 
cash  about  you,  he  and  young  Schenk  Eybel  shall  ride  with  you 
to  Haargrond,  where  lives  your  friend  Bough.  They  can 
bring  back  the  money  and  the  mare  and  spider,  too.  Moreover 
Eybel,  who  is  a  bright  lad,  and  has  a  head  upon  his  shoulders, 
wants  a  slim  rogue  of  a  fellow  that  talks  Engelsch  to  worm 
himself  in  over  yonder  " — he  jerked  his  gnarled  thumb  in  the 
direction  of  Gueldersdorp— "  and  bring  back  a  plan  of  the  de- 
fences on  the  west,  where  the  native  stad  lies.  Perhaps  I  will 
let  you  keep  two  hundred  of  that  five  hundred  if  you  are  the 
man  to  go.  ...  But  whether  you  go  or  stay,  by  the  Lord! 
you  wrill  find  it  best  to  be  square  with  Selig  Bronnckers." 

And  the  redoubtable  Bronnckers  stumped  off.  Verily,  in 
times  of  scarcity,  when  the  lion  is  a-hungered,  the  jackal 
must  lose  his  bone. 

It  wrould  be  well,  thought  the  dispirited  jackal  ruefully,  to 
remove  the  unfavourable  impression  made  by  a  valuable  service 
rendered  to  the  United  Republics.  It  would  be  a  good  thing 
to  stand  well  with  Myjnheer  Schenk  Eybel,  who  would,  when 
Bronnckers  went  south,  be  left  in  sole  command.  It  would 
be  as  well,  also,  to  get  a  look  at  the  girl  that  was  living  with 
the  nuns  at  Gueldersdorp. 

"  Mildare  .  .  ."  That  was  the  puzzle — her  having  the 
name  so  pat.  But  these  little  frightened,  white-faced  things 
were  sly,  and  knew  more  than  you  thought  for.  .  .  . 

Grown  up  a  beauty,  too,  and  with  the  manners  of  a  lady. 
He  swore  again,  the  thing  seemed  so  incredible,  and  spat  upon 
the  dust.  A  pretty  green  shining  beetle  crawled  there.  He 
set  his  heavy  foot  upon  the  insect,  and  its  beauty  was  no  more.. 


XXXVII 

As  the  Captain's  heavy  cavalry  stride  shakes  Nixey's  roof, 
the  upright,  lightly-built  soldierly  figure  in  khaki  turns  and 
comes  towards  him,  giving  the  binoculars  in  charge  to  the 
Sergeant-Major  of  Meynews,  who  is  his  orderly  of  the  day. 


;u 6  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

"  I  want  a  word  with  you,  Wrynche.  Rawlings  will  take 
the  glasses.  Come  in  here  under  cover." 

He  leads  the  way.  The  cover  is  a  canvas  shelter,  perhaps 
a  protection  from  the  blazing  sun,  but  none  at  all  from  shell 
and  bullets.  There  are  a  couple  of  wooden  chairs  under  its 
flimsy  spread  and  a  little  table.  The  Chief  sits  down  astride 
on  one  of  the  chairs,  accepts  a  cigar  from  Captain  Bingo's 
enormous  crocodile  leather  case,  and  says,  as  the  first  ring  of 
blue  smoke  goes  wavering  upwards: 

"  You'll  be  glad  to  know  that  Monboia's  Barald  runner 
has  got  through  with  good  news  for  you"  The  last  two 
words  are  rather  strongly  emphasized.  "  Just  before  dawn 
and  after  Beauvayse  relieved  you  at  Staff  Bombproof  South." 

Captain  Bingo  swallows  violently,  runs  a  thick  finger 
round  his  inside  collar,  and  his  big  face  goes  through  several 
changes  of  complexion,  ranging  from  boiled  suet-dumpling 
paleness  to  beetroot  red.  He  looks  away  and  blinks  before  he 
says  in  a  voice  that  wobbles: 

"Then  my  wife's— all  right?" 

"  Lady  Hannah  and  her  German  attendant,  as  far  back 
as  the  day  before  yesterday,  when  Monboia's  man  saw  them, 
were  in  the  enjoyment  of  excellent  health." 

"  Poof ! "  Captain  Bingo  blows  a  genuine  sigh  of  relief, 
and  the  latent  lugubriousness  departs  from  him.  "  Good 
hearing.  I've  had — call  it  hippopotamus  on  the  chest  this 
two  months,  and  you'll  about  hit  the  mark.  Uncertainty  and 
suspense  get  on  a  man's  nerves,  in  the  long-run.  Bound  to. 

And  never  a  word — the  deuce  a  line — all  these Poof !  " 

He  blows  again,  and  beams.  The  Colonel,  watching  him  out 
of  the  corner  of  one  keen  eye,  says,  with  a  twitching  muscle 
in  the  cheek  that  is  turned  away  from  him: 

"  My  good  news  being  told,  I  have  a  slice  of  bad  for  you. 
But  first  let  me  make  an  admission.  Since  Nixey's  pony 
pulled  Nixey's  spider  out  of  Gueldersdorp  with  Lady  Hannah 
and  her  maid  in  it,  I  have  had  three  communications  from  your 
wife." 

"You're  pullin*  my  leg,  sir,  ain't  you?"  queries  Bingo 
doubtfully. 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it." 

In  confirmation  of  the  statement  he  takes  out  a  shabby 
pocket-book,  fat  with  official  documents,  and,  unstrapping 
it,  selects  three,  and  hands  them  to  Bingo.  They  are  flimsy 
sheets  of  tissue-paper  covered  with  spidery  characters  in  violet 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  317 

ink,  and  Bingo,  taking  them,  recognizes  the  handwriting,  and 
is,  as  he  states  without  hesitation,  confoundedly  habbergasted. 

"  For  they  are  in  my  wife's  wild  scrawl,"  he  splutters  at 
last.  "  How  on  earth  did  they  reach  you,  sir?" 

"  The  first  was  brought  in  by  a  native  boy  who  said  he 
belonged  to  the  Kraals  at  Tweipans,"  says  the  Chief. 
"  Rolled  small  and  stuffed  into  a  quill  stuck  through  his  ear 
in  the  usual  way.  He  trumped  up  a  glib  story  about  his  cow 
having  been  killed  and  his  new  wife  beaten  by  Bronnckers' 
men,  and  his  desire  to  be  revenged  and  oblige  the  English 
lady  who'd  been  kind  to  him " 

"  Umph !  Native  gratitude  don't  run  to  being  skinned 
alive  with  sjamboks — not  much!"  the  other  comments. 
"  Man  must  have  been  lyin',  or  a  kind  of  nigger  Phoenix." 

"  Exactly.  So  I  couldn't  find  it  in  my  heart  to  part  with 
him.  He's  on  the  coloured  side  of  the  gaol  now,  with  two 
others,  who  subsequently  landed  in  with  the  documents  you 
have  in  hand  there." 

"  Am  I  to  read  'em  ?  "  Bingo  queries. 

His  commanding  officer  nods,  with  the  muscle  in  his  lean 
cheek  twitching. 

"  Certainly.    Aloud  if  you'll  be  so  good." 

Bingo  reads,  with  haltings  on  the  way,  for  the  tissue  sheets 
stick  to  his  large  ringers,  which  are  damp  with  suppressed 
agitation : 

"  HAARGROND  PLAATS, 
"  NEAR  TWEIPANS, 

"  October  30th. 

"  To    the    Colonel    Commanding    Her    Majesty's    Forces    in 
Gueldersdorp. 

"  SIR, — I  beg  to  report  myself  arrived  at  the  above  address, 
twelve  miles  distant  from  the  head  laager  of  the  Boer  Com- 
mandant, General  Bronnckers.  I  have  to  inform  you  that  an 
attack  will  be  made  on  Maxim  Kopje  South  by  a  large  force 
of  the  enemy  with  guns  in  the  beginning  of  November. 
"  I  have  the  honour  to  be, 

"  On  Secret  Service, 
"  Yours  most  obediently, 

"  H.  WRYNCHE." 

"  Communications  care  of 
MYJNHEER  H.  VAN  BUSCH." 


318  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

Bingo  stares  blankly  at  his  Chief,  the  sheets  of  crumpled 
tissue  wavering  between  his  thick,  agitated  fingers. 

"  I  got  that  letter  exactly  a  week  after  the  attack  had  been 
made  and  successfully  resisted,"  says  the  Colonel's  dry,  quiet 
voice.  "  Read  the  four  lines  in  a  different  hand  and  ink, 
that  are  underlined  at  the  bottom,  and  tell  me  what  you  think 
of  'em." 

Bingo  obeyed,  and  read: 

"Lady's  information  perfectly  correct.  We  hope  this  in- 
telligence will  reach  you  in  time  to  be  useful. 

"I  have  the  honour  to  be, 

"P.  Blinders." 
"Acting-secretary  to  General  Bronncktrs." 

"  By  the  Living  Tinker !  "  exploded  Bingo. 
"  Don't  be  prodigal  of  emotion,"  the  Colonel's  quiet  voice 
warns  the  excited  husband.  "  There  are  two  more  letters  fol- 
lowing.    Read  'em  in  the  proper  sequence.     That  one  with  the 
inky  design  at  the  top,  that  might  be  the  pattern  for  a  pair 
of  fancy  pajamas — that's  the  next." 
Bingo  reads  as  follows: 

"KINK'S  HOTEL, 
"  TWEIPANS, 
"  November  28th. 

"  To  the  Colonel  Commanding  H.  M.  Forces  in  Gueldersdorp. 

"  SIR, — I  beg  to  report  myself  arrived  at  Tweipans.  I  have 
the  honour  to  enclose  herewith  a  sketch-plan  of  the  village  and 
the  disposition  of  General  Bronnckers'  laager.  Trusting  you 
may  find  it  useful, 

"  I  have  the  honour  to  be, 

"  On  Secret  Service. 
"Yours  most  obediently, 

H.  WRYNCHE." 

The  sarcastic  P.  Blinders  had  appended  an  italicized  com- 
ment: 

"His  Honour  considers  the  above  sketch-plan  remarkably 
faithful.  The  building  next  the  Gerevoorwed  Kerk,  indicated 
by  an  X ,  is  the  gaol.  Comfortable  cells  at  your  disposal,  which 
•we  are  keeping  aired. 

"P,  Blinders." 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  319 


"  D-a-a- 


The  Chief  does  not  happen  to  be  looking  Bingo's  way  as  the 
infuriated  husband  menaces  with  a  large  clenched  fist  the 
absent  personality  of  the  grinning  image  of  the  sportive  P. 
Blinders. 

"  Swear — it  will  bring  the  blood  down  from  your  head," 
advises  the  dry,  quiet  voice.  "  But  don't  tear  up  the  papers 
— they're  too  amusing  to  lose." 

"Amusin'!  "  growls  Bingo,  with  smarting  eyes,  and  a  lumpy 
throat,  and  a  tingling  in  his  large  muscles  which  P.  Blinders, 
being  out  of  reach,  can  afford  to  provoke.  "  You  wouldn't 
think  it  amusin',  sir,  if  it  were  your  wife,  making  herself  a — a 
figure  of  fun  for  those  Dutch  bounders  to  shy  at." 

This  is  the  third  letter. 

"December  23rd. 
"  To  the  Colonel  Commanding,  Gueldersdorp. 

"  SIR, — I  have  to  report  that  the  coup  you  have  planned  to 
take  place  on  the  morning  of  the  26th,  for  the  capture  of  the 
enemy's  big  gun,  is  known  to  General  Bronnckers,  and  that 
One  Tree  Redoubt  will  be  strengthened  and  manned  to  resist 
you. 

"  Obediently, 

"  H.  WRYNCHE." 
Underneath  is  the  sarcastic  comment: 

"December  27th. 

"Nice  if  you  had  got  this  in  time,  eh?  And  ^ue  wanted 
those  boots  and  badges" 

"P.  B." 

"  She  got  hold  of  a  nugget  that  once,  anyway,"  says  Cap- 
tain Bingo,  blowing  his  nose  emphatically;  "  and — by  the 
Living  Tinker!  if  it  had  reached  us  in  time,  we'd  have  saved  a 
loss  of  eighteen  killed  and  stripped,  and  twenty-five  wounded, 
and  the  stingin'  shame  of  a  whippin'  into  the  bargain." 

"  Perhaps,"  says  the  Colonel,  with  a  careworn  shadow  on 
the  keen,  sagacious  face,  and  both  men  are  silent,  remembering 
an  assault  the  desperate,  reckless  valour  of  which  deserves  to 
be  bracketed  in  history  with  the  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade 
at  Balaclava.  "  If  Defeat  is  ever  shame,  perhaps,  Wrynche. 
But  if  you  could  put  the  question  to  each  of  that  handful  of 


320  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

brave  men  sleeping  side  by  side  over  there  " — he  nods  in  the 
direction  of  the  Cemetery,  where  the  aftermath  of  Death's  red 
harvest  has  sprung  up  in  orderly  rows  of  little  white  crosses — 
"  they  would  tell  you  it  can  be  more  glorious  than  victory." 

"  Of  course,  you're  right,  sir.  I  gather  now  what  your  bad 
news  is,"  says  Bingo,  who  has  been  dejectedly  rubbing  his 
finger  along  the  bristly  edges  of  his  clipped  moustache,  for  a 
'minute  past,  "  Judgin'  by  the  marginal  annotations  of  this  man 
Blinders — brute  I'd  kick  to  Cape  Town  with  pleasure — my 
wife's  a  prisoner  in  Bronnckers'  hands?" 

"  An  unconscious  prisoner — yes.  Give  'em  their  due, 
Wrynche.  I  shouldn't  have  credited  'em  with  the  sense  of 
humour  they  have  displayed  in  their  dealings  with  her." 

If  it  were  possible  for  Bingo  to  grow  redder  in  the  face,  one 
would  say  that  he  has  done  so,  as  he  bursts  out,  in  a  violent 
perspiration,  striding  up  and  down  over  Nixey's  sheet-leaded 
roof. 

"  Confound  their  humour!  It's  the  humour  of  tom-cats 
playin'  with — a — a  dashed  little  silly  dicky-bird.  It's  the 
humour  of  aasvogels  watchin'  a  shot  rock-rabbit  kick.  It's  the 
humour  of  the  battledore  and  the  shuttlecock.  And  I'm  the 
dicky-bird's  mate  and  the  bunny's  better-half,  and  the  other 
shuttlecock  of  the  pair,  and  may  I  be  blessed  if  I  can  take  it 
smilin'."  He  mops  his  scarlet  and  dripping  face,  and  puffs 
and  blows  like  a  large  military  walrus  on  dry  land. 

"Perhaps  you'll  manage  a  smile  when  you've  read  this?" 

Bingo  stops  in  his  stride,  wheels,  and  receives  an  official 
document  on  blue  paper.  Under  the  date  of  the  previous  day, 
it  runs  as  follows: 

"  HEAD  LAAGER, 
"  TWEIPANS, 

"January  — th. 

"  To  the  Colonel  Commanding  the  British  Forces  in  Guelders- 

dorp. 

"  SIR, — In  reply  to  your  communication  I  am  instructed  by 
General  Bronnckers  to  inform  you  that  our  prisoner,  the  Eng- 
lishwoman who  came  here  in  the  character  of  a  German 
drummer's  refugee  widow  to  act  as  your  spy,  will  be  exchanged 
for  a  free  Boer  of  the  Transvaal  Republic,  by  name,  Myjnheer 
W.  Slabbert,  who  is  at  present  confined  under  the  Yellow 
Flag  in  Gueldersdorp  gaol.  The  exchange  will  be  effected  by 
parties  under  the  White  Flag  at  a  given  point  North-East  be- 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  321 

tween   the  lines  of  investment   and   defence  one  hour  before 
Kerk-time  to-morrow,  being  the  Sabbath. 

"  I  have  the  honour  to  be  yours  truly. 

"P.  BLINDERS  (Apothecary). 

"  Acting-Secretary  to  General  Bronnckers." 

"  PS. — The  young  lady  of  German  extraction  who  accom- 
panied the  Englishwoman  has  entered  into  an  engagement  to 
remain  here. 

"P.  B." 

"  PPS. — The  engagement  is  with  yours  truly,  the  young 
lady  having  conformed  to  the  faith  of  the  Dopper  Kerk.  We 
are  to  be  married  next  Sunday.  Would  you  like  us  to  send 
you  some  wedding-cake? 

"P.  B." 

Blinders  has  certainly  had  the  last  dig,  but  his  principal  vic- 
tim, Captain  Bingo,  fails  this  time  to  wince  under  the  point 
of  his  humour.  With  his  big  face  changing  from  red  to  white, 
and  from  white  to  crimson  half  a  dozen  times  in  as  many  sec- 
onds, Captain  Bingo  says,  refolding  the  paper  and  returning 
it  with  a  shaky  hand : 

"  Then  she— she " 

A  lump  in  his  throat  slides  down  and  sticks,  preventing 
further  utterance. 

"  Dopper  Kerk-time  is  eleven  o'clock."  The  Colonel  looks 
at  his  shabby  wrist-watch,  as  the  sound  of  cantering  horses 
comes  through  the  Market  Square,  and  an  orderly,  leading  an 
officer's  charger,  halts  before  Nixey's  door.  "  The  B.S.A. 
escort  with  their  man  are  due  to  leave  the  gaol  in  ten  minutes' 
time.  Here's  your  orderly  with  your  mount,  and  you've  eight 
minutes  to  change  in." 

"  One  minute,  sir,"  Captain  Bingo  utters  with  an  effort. 
"  This  man — this  Slabbert — is  a  well-known  spy — a  trump 
card  in  Bronnckers'  hand,  or  he  wouldn't  be  so  anxious  to  get 
hold  of  him.  And  therefore — by  this  exchange — and  a 
woman's  dashed  ambitious  folly — you  may  lose  heavily  in  the 
end.  .  .  ." 

"  I  don't  deny  it."  The  haggard  shadow  is  again  upon 
the  Colonel's  face,  or  is  it  that  Bingo's  radiance  dulls  neigh- 
bouring surfaces  by  comparison  ?  "  But  don't  let.  the  thought 
of  it  spoil  your  good  hour."  The  smile  in  the  eyes  that  have 


322  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

so  many  lines  about  them  is  kind,  if  the  mouth  under  the  red- 
brown  moustache  is  stern  and  sorrowful. 

"  We  don't  have  many  of  'em.  Off  with  you  and  meet  her." 
Captain  Bingo  tries  to  say  something  more,  but  makes  a 
hash  of  it;  and  with  eyes  that  fairly  run  over,  can  only  grip 
the  kindly  hand  again  and  again,  assuring  its  owner,  with 
numerous  references  to  the  Living  Tinker,  that  he  is  the  most 
thundering  brick  on  earth.  Then,  overthrowing  the  small 
table  and  one  of  the  chairs,  he  plunges  down  the  narrow  iron 
stairway  to  get  into  what  he  calls  his  kit.  Six  minutes  later, 
correct  to  a  buckle  and  a  puttee-fold,  he  salutes  his  command- 
ing officer,  nodding  pleasantly  to  him  from  Nixey's  roof,  and 
clatters  down  the  street  at  a  tremendous  gallop,  the  happiest 
man  in  Gueldersdorp,  with  this  shout  following  him: 

"  My  regards  to  Lady  Hannah.  And  tell  her  that  the 
Staff  dine  on  gee-gee  at  six  o'clock  sharp,  and  I  shall  be 
charmed  if  she'll  join  us." 


XXXVIII 

THE  little  Olopo  River,  a  mere  branch  of  the  bigger  river 
that  makes  fertile  British  Baraland,  runs  from  east  to  west, 
along  the  southern  side  of  Gueldersdorp,  ending  in  innumer- 
able thready  water-courses,  dry  in  the  blistering  winter  heat, 
that  the  wet  season  disperses  among  the  foothills  that  bristle 
with  Bronnckers'  artillery.  Seen  from  the  altitude  of  a  balloon 
or  a  war-kite,  the  course  of  the  beer-coloured  stream  flowing 
between  forty-foot  high  banks  sparsely  wooded  with  oak  and 
blue  gum,  and  lavishly  clothed  with  cactus,  mimosa,  and  tree- 
fern,  high  grasses,  and  climbing-creepers,  would  have  looked 
like  a  verdant  ribbon  meandering  over  the  dun  and  ochre- 
coloured  veld,  where  patches  of  bluish-green  are  beginning  to 
spread.  The  south  bank,  where  the  bush  grows  thickest,  was 
frequently  patronized  by  picnic-parties,  and  at  all  times  a  place 
of  resort  for  strolling  sweethearts.  The  north  bank,  much 
more  precipitous,  was  clothed  with  a  tangled  luxuriance  of 
vegetation,  and  threaded  only  by  native  paths,  so  narrow  as  to 
prove  discouraging  to  pedestrians  desirous  of  walking  side  by 
side.  Where  the  outermost  line  of  defences  impinged  upon  the 
river-bed,  the  trees  had  been  cut  down  and  the  bush  levelled. 
But  west  of  Maxim  Outpost  South,  and  the  trenches  that 
flanked  it,  all  was  as  it  had  been  for  hundreds  of  years,  in  the 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  323 

remembrance  of  the  great  granite  boulder  that  stood  on  the 
south  shore. 

The  great  boulder  had  known  changes  since  the  old  Plutonic 
forces  cast  it  upwards,  a  mere  bubble  of  melted  granite,  solidi- 
fying as  it  went  into  a  stone  acorn  thirty  feet  high,  which  the 
glacier  brought  down  in  a  slow  journey  of  countless  ages,  and 
set  upright  like  a  phallic  symbol,  amongst  other  boulders  of 
lesser  size.  The  channel  the  glacier  had  chiselled  was  now 
full  of  shining  honey-coloured  water,  hurrying  over  the  grey 
stones  and  blocks  of  quartz  and  pretty  vari-coloured  pebbles, 
while  the  boulder  sat  high  and  dry,  with  the  tall-plumed 
grasses  and  the  graceful  tree-fern,  and  the  yellow-tasselled 
mimosa  crowding  about  its  knees,  and  remembered  old  timesr 
long  before  the  little  Bushfellow  had  outlined  the  koodoo  and 
the  buffalo,  and  the  hunter-man  with  the  spear,  in  black 
pigments  on  its  smooth  plank,  and  ground  up  the  coprolites 
gathered  from  the  river-bed  for  red  and  yellow  paint  to  colour 
the  drawings.  On  the  western  side  the  great  boulder  was 
dressed  in  crimson  lake  and  yellow  umber-hued  lichens  from 
base  to  summit,  and  in  August,  when  the  aloes  flowered  in 
magnificent  fiery  clusters  upon  its  crown  and  at  its  base ;  and  in 
May  the  pink  bignonia  wreathed  it.  in  exquisite  trails,  and 
pelargoniums  and  everlastings  bloomed  in  every  cranny  of  the 
rocks,  King  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  held  less  magnificence  of 
state.  Just  now  the  sweet-scented  clematis  wrapped  the  big 
stone  in  a  white  and  purple  mantle.  Where  the  high  grass  and 
bush  had  been  cleared  in  a  wide  space  about  it  the 
shorter,  sweeter  vegetation  that  had  sprung  was  full 
of  orchids  and  scarlet  and  golden  cowslips,  sparaxis  with  chimes 
of  tiny  pink  and  blue  bells  hanging  from  splendid  brown  and 
amber  sword-flower,  the  long  drooping  spikes  and  the  scented 
little  irises  of  white  and  violet. 

Insects  and  beasts  and  birds  loved  the  boulder.  The  sun- 
beetle  and  the  orange-tip  and  peacock  butterflies  loved  to  bask 
on  its  hottest  side,  while  the  old  dog-faced  baboon  squatted  on 
top  of  it,  and  chattered  wisdom  to  his  numerous  family,  and 
the  finches  and  love-birds  built  in  its  crannies  and  bred  their 
young,  too  often  as  food  for  the  giant  tarantula  and  the  tree- 
snake;  while  the  francolin  and  grouse  dusted  themselves  in  the 
hot  sand  at.  the  base  of  its  throne  of  rocks,  and  the  springbok 
and  the  wart-hogs  came  down  at  night  to  drink ;  and  the  woolly 
cheetah  and  the  red  lynx  came  after  the  springbok  and  the 
wart-hog. 


324  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

The  boulder  had  seen  War — War  between  black-skinned 
men  and  brown-skinned  men,  adventurers  with  great  hooked 
noses  and  curled  beards,  with  tassels  of  silk  and  gold  plaited 
into  them  and  into  the  hair  of  their  heads,  terrible  warriors, 
mighty  hunters,  and  great  miners,  who  came  for  slaves  and 
ivory  and  gold,  and  hollowed  strongholds  out  of  the  moun- 
tains, and  worshipped  strange  bird-beaked  gods,  and  passed 
away.  Yet  again,  when  these  ceased  to  be,  there  had  been 
War,  and  this  time  the  black  men  of  the  soil  fought  with 
white  strangers,  who  wanted  the  same  things — slaves,  and 
skins,  and  ivory,  and  the  yellow  metal  of  the  river-sands  and 
of  the  rocks.  Now  white  men  fought  with  white.  The  black 
men  owned  little  of  the  country  now;  they  hid  in  the  gloofs 
and  schantzes  in  terror,  while  the  European  conquerors  shed 
each  other's  blood  for  gold,  and  land,  and  power.  The 
boulder  was  so  very  old.  It  could  afford  to  wait  patiently  un- 
til these  men,  like  all  that  went  before,  had  passed. 

Every  seventh  day  the  guns  ceased  bellowing  and  throwing 
iron  things  that  burst  and  scattered  Death  broadcast,  and  the 
rifles  stopped  crack-cracking  and  spitting  lead.  Then  the 
scared  birds  came  back:  the  wTaxbills,  and  lovebirds,  and 
finches,  and  sparrows  darted  in  and  out  among  the  bushes, 
and  the  partridge,  and  quail,  and  francolin  ventured  down  to 
drink.  The  old  baboon  had  retired  to  the  hills  with  his  fam- 
ily; the  springbok  and  the  wart-hog  had  moved  up  Bulawayo 
way;  the  cheetah  and  the  lynx  had  followed  them.  .  .  . 

But  as  long  as  human  lovers  came  and  whispered  to  each 
other,  standing  beside  the  big  boulder,  or  sitting  in  its  shadow, 
the  boulder  would  be  content.  They  spoke  the  old  language 
that  it  had  learned  when  the  world  was  comparatively  young. 
Black  and  yellow  or  white,  African  or  Oriental  or  European, 
'this  speech  of  theirs  was  always  the  same;  their  looks  and  ac- 
'tions  never  varied.  Either  they  met  and  kissed  and  were 
happy,  or  they  met  and  quarrelled  and  were  miserable.  When 
'no  more  lovers  should  come,  the  boulder  knew  that  would  be 
the  end  of  everything. 

There  was  a  gaudily  dressed,  white-faced  young  woman 
waiting  now  beside  the  big  stone  upon  this  seventh  day.  Her 
blue  eyes  were  large  and  wistful.  She  had  taken  off  her  big 
flaunting  hat  and  hung  it  on  a  bush,  and  her  face  was  not 
unpretty,  topped  by  its  aureole  of  frizzy  yellow  curls.  She 
leant  against  the  sun-warmed  granite,  and  cried  a  little.  That 
was  the  way  of  women  when  the  man  was  late  at  the  tryst. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  325 

Then  she  dried  her  eyes  and  hummed  a  song,  and,  finally,  tak- 
ing a  stump  of  pencil  from  her  pocket,  she  began  to  scribble 
on  the  smooth  grey  stone — all  part  of  the  old  play,  the  boulder 
knew.  The  first  woman  who  had  ever  leaned  against  him 
had  drawn  a  figure  meant  for  a  portrait  of  her  lover,  with  a 
sharpened  flake  of  flint. 

The  young  woman,  as  she  sucked  her  lead-pencil,  was  quite 
unconscious  that  the  boulder  thought  at  all.  She  wrote  in  an 
unformed  hand,  and  in  letters  that  began  by  being  large  and 
round,  and  tailed  off  into  a  slanting  niggle.  "  W.  Keyse, 
Esquer."  Then  she  bit  the  pencil  awhile,  and  dreamed 
dreams.  Then  she  wrote  again,  "  Jane  Keyse  "  and  "  Mrs. 
W.  Keyse,"  and  blushed  furiously,  and  then  grew  pale  again 
in  anticipation  of  the  Awful  Ordeal  to  come.  For  she  had 
made  up  her  mind  to  tell  him  all,  and  chance  it. 

Yesterday  had  been  his  birthday.  She  had  sent  him,  per 
John  Tow,  a  costly  gift.  The  four-ounce  packet  of  honey- 
dew,  cheap  at  five  dollars  in  these  days  of  scarcity,  had  been 
opened,  and  the  new  pipe  filled.  A  slip  of  paper  coquettishly 
intimated  that  the  sender  had  rendered  the  recipient  this  deli- 
cate little  service.  She  meant  to  sign  "  Jane  Harris,"  but  her 
courage  failed  her,  and  her  trembling  pen  faltered  for  the  last 
time,  "  Fare  'Air." 

Oh!  how  she  hated  that  Other  One,  whom,  perhaps,  he 
liked  the  best,  though  he  had  never  kissed  her!  She  would 
be  done  with  the  creature,  she  thanked  her  Gawd,  after  to-day! 
Oh,  how  many  times  she  had  made  up  her  mind  to  tell  him 
the  truth,  and  never  done  it!  But  if  she  took  and  died  of  it, 
tell  him  she  would  to-day. 

How  would  he  take  the  revelation?  Possibly  swearing. 
Probably  he  would  be  angry  enough  to  hit  her,  when  he  knew^ 
If  he  only  would,  and  make  it  up  afterwards!  Oh!  how 
cruel  she  did  suffer!  She  thought  she  would  not  tell  him  just 
yet.  It  was  too  hard.  And  then  it  seemed  quite  easy,  and 
then  she  cried  out  in  agony:  "  Is  that  'im  comin'?  Oh,  my 
Gawd,  it  is!  " 

She  clasped  her  hands  over  a  brand-new  blowze,  with  some- 
thing under  it  that  jumped  and  fluttered  orful.  Mother  used 
to  'ave  such  palpitytions  when  her  and  father  'ad  'ad  what  you 
might  call  a  jar.  And  he  was  coming,  coming. 

Surely  W.  Keyse  looked  stern  and  imposingly  tall  of  stature 
seen  from  her  lower  level,  as  he  appeared  among  the  blue 
gum-trees  on  the  top  of  the  bank,  and  began  to  descend  into 


326  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

the  ferny  gorge  where  the  great  boulder  sat  and  sunned  him- 
self beside  the  beer-coloured  river,  whose  barbel  rose  continu- 
ously at  the  flies.  Something  W.  Keyse  dragged  behind  him, 
not  by  a  rope,  but  by  a  pigtail,  an  animated  bundle  of  clean 
blue  cotton,  topped  by  the  impassive,  almond-eyed  countenance 
of  a  letter-carrying  Chinaman,  by  name  John  Tow,  who  in  the 
pursuit  of  tikkies,  rinding  the  letter  written  by  the  foreign  lady- 
devil  to  the  male  one  eagerly  paid  for  on  the  nail,  had  offered 
for  half  as  much  again  to  induce  her  for  the  future  to  write 
two  instead  of  one.  Towing  Tow,  the  smarting  victim  of 
feminine  duplicity,  came  crashing  down  upon  the  guilty  girl 
who  had  betrayed  him. 

"  See  'ere !  You  know  this  'ere  young  lady,  and  you  re- 
member what  you've  bin  and  told  me.  Say  it  over  again  now," 
thundered  W.  Keyse,  "  so  as  she  can  'ear  you.  Tell  me  be- 
fore 'er  as  wot  she  wrote  them — these  letters" — he  rapped 
himself  dramatically  upon  the  breast-pocket — "  and  how  you 
see  her  doing  of  it,  before  I  kick  your  backbone  through  your 
hat." 

All  was  lost.  The  Chinaman  had  up  an'  give  her  away. 
Certainly  he  had  saved  her  trouble,  but.  what  was  he  sayin' 
now,  the  'orrible  slant-eyed  'eathen?  She  could  hardly  hear 
him  for  the  roaring  in  her  poor  bewildered  head. 

"  S'pose  John  tell,  can  carchee  more  tikkie  ?  Plenty  tikkie 
want  to  buy  chow  allee  so  baddee  times." 

"  Always  on  the  make,  ain't  you  ?  "  commented  W.  Keyse. 
With  a  strong,  imperious  shove,  he  dumped  the  blue  bundle 
down  among  the  irises  in  which  the  feet  of  the  guilty  fair  were 
hidden,  saying  sternly:  "I  give  you  three  minutes  to  git  it  off 
your  chest,  else  kickie  is  wot  you'll  catch  instead  o'  tikkie." 
He  furnished  a  moderate  sample  on  account. 

"  Oh,  ki — ah.     Oh,  ki — ah !  "  moaned  the  tingling  John. 

"Don't  you  be  'ard  on  him,  Billy" — he  hardly  knew  the 
voice,  it  was  so  weak  and  small — "  it's  Gawspel  truth.  To 
pay  you  out. — at  first,  for  juggin'  Walt,  I  did  write  them  let- 
ters— every  bloomin'  screeve." 

"  An'  sent  the  pipe  and  baccy  for  a  birthday  present,  to  make 
a  blushin'  fool  o'  me?"  yelled  the  infuriated  Keyse.  "All 
for  the  crimson  sake  of  a  fat  'og  of  a  Dutchman ! " 

The  patriot  to  whom  he  referred,  mounted  on  an  attenuated 
mule,  and  escorted  by  a  Sergeant  and  six  men  of  the  B.S.A., 
under  the  superintendence  of  a  large  pink  officer  of  the  Staff, 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  327 

was  at  that  moment  being  conducted  at  a  sharp  trot  out  of 
the  lines,  to  meet  a  smallish  waggon  pulled  by  a  span  of  four 
that  was  being  brought,  down  from  Tweipans  by  half  a  dozen 
Boers  in  weathered  tan  cord  and  velveteen,  weathered  pot- 
hats  and  ragged  shooting-jackets,  carrying  very  carefully 
tended  rifles,  mounted  on  well-fed,  wiry  little  horses,  and  accom- 
panied by  a  White  Flag.  If  she  had  known,  what  would  it 
have  mattered  to  her?  All  her  thoughts  were  centred  in  this 
furious  little  mao,  whose  pale,  ugly  eyes  fairly  blazed  at  her,  as 
he  repeated: 

"  To  pay — me  out.  You  brawsted  little  Treachery, 
you " 

She  crimsoned  to  her  hair;  you  could  see  the  red  run  rush- 
ing and  rushing  up  from  under  the  peekaboo  embroidery  in 
front  of  the  tawdry  blowze,  in  a  hurry  to  tell  her  tingling  ears 
what  cruel  names  he  called  her. 

"  To  pay  you  out  at  first  it  was.  An*  afterwards " — 
her  throat  hurt  her,  and  her  eyes  did  smart  and  burn  so — 
"afterwards  I — I  wanted  .  .  .  O  Gawd!  .  .  ."  she  shook 
all  over — "you'll  never  walk  out  wi'  me  no  more  after 
this!" 

"  You  may  take  your  dyin'  oath  I  won't."  He  was  bitterly 
sarcastic.  "  Strite,  an'  no  kid,  didn't  you  know  when  you 
done — that — I'd  never  forgive  yer  as  long  as  I  lived?" 

He  plucked  the  stout  package  of  letters  signed  "  Fare  'Air  " 
from  his  indignant  bosom,  and  threw  them  at.  her  feet,  with 
the  new  pipe,  her  hapless  gift.  His  wrath  was  infinitely  more 
terrible  than  she  had  imagined.  Her  tongue  clave  to  the  roof 
of  her  mouth.  Everything  kep'  a-spinnin'  so,  she  couldn't 
'ardly  tell  whether  she  was  on  'er  'ead  or  'er  'eels.  She  will 
remember  that  day  to  the  last  breath  she  dror.  .  .  . 

"  Didn't  you  know  it?"  the  voice  of  her  judge  demanded 
again. 

John  Tow,  finding  himself  no  longer  an  object  of  attention, 
had  discreetly  vanished. 

"  Oh,  I  did,  I  did !  "  Her  agony  was  frantic.  "  Oh,  let  me 
go  away  and  hide  and  die  somewhere!  Oh,  crooil,  to  break 
a  pore  gal's  'art!  Wot — wot  loves  the  bloomin*  earth  under 
your  feet !  " 

"  Garn !  " — the  scorn  of  W.  Keyse  was  something  awful — 
"you  an'  your  love " 

She  wrenched  the  cotton  lace  away  from  her  thin  throat, 


328  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

and  tore  some  of  her  hair  out  in  the  strenuous  hysteria  of  hef 
class,  and  screamed  at  him: 

"  Me  an'  my  love!  .  .  .  Go  on.  .  .  .  Frow  it  in  me  face, 
an'  'ave  no  pity.  Me  an*  my  love.  .  .  .  Sneer  at  it,  take 
an'  spit  on  it — ain't  it  yours  all  the  syme?  Oh,  for  Gawd's 
syke  forgive  me!  " 

He  struck  an  indomitable  attitude  and  thundered: 

"  So  'elp  me  Jiminy  Cripps,  I  never  will." 

She  knew  that  the  oath  was  irrevocable,  and  with  a  faint 
moan,  turned  to  the  great  boulder  that  was  behind  her,  and 
clung  to  its  hard  grey  bosom  as  if  it  had  been  a  mother's.  She 
moaned  to  him  as  her  thin  figure  flattened  itself  against  the 
stone,  to  let  her  go  away  and  die  somewhere.  He  stood  a 
moment  looking  at,  her,  and  exulting  in  his  power,  meaning 
her  to  suffer  yet  a  little  longer  ere  he  relented.  Secretly,  he 
knew  relief  that  the  golden  pigtail  and  the  provoking  blue 
eyes  of  Miss  Greta  Du  Taine  had  vanished  out  of  Guelders- 
dorp  before  the  first  Act  of  War.  He  would  have  felt  them  in 
the  way  now.  Those  shining,  tearful  eyes  and  the  mouth  that 
kissed  and  clung  to  his  had  done  their  work  on  the  night  of 
the  Christy-Minstrel  entertainment  in  the  empty  Government 
store.  He  would  pretend  to  go  away  and  leave  her.  He 
would  come  back,  enjoy  her  astonishment,  be  melted  by  re- 
newed entreaties,  stoop  to  ponder,  overwhelm  her  with  his 
magnanimity,  and  then  proceed  to  love-making. 

But  as  a  preliminary  he  swung  round  upon  his  heel  and 
strode  upward  through  the  short  bush  and  the  tall  grasses,  the 
scandalized  flowers  thrashing  his  boots.  She  saw  him,  al- 
though her  back  was  turned.  If  he  could  have  known  how 
tall  he  seemed  to  Emigration  Jane  as  he  strode  away,  W.  Keyse 
would  have  been  tickled  to  the  core.  But  he  turned  when  he 
felt  sure  he  was  well  out  of  sight,  and  hurried  back  eagerly. 

She  was  not  there. 

He  was  indifferent  at  first,  then  angry,  then  anxious,  then 
disconsolate.  Repentance  followed  fast  on  the  heels  of  all 
these  moods.  He  picked  up  the  packet  of  letters  and  the  re- 
jected pipe,  cursing  his  own  cruelty,  and  sought  her  up  and 
down  the  banks,  calling  her  in  tones  that  were  urgent,  affec- 
tionate, upbraiding,  appealing;  but  not  for  all  his  luring  would 
the  flown  bird  come  back  to  fist.  No  more  beside  the  river, 
or  in  other  places  where  they  had  been  wont  to  meet,  did  W~ 
Keyse  encounter  Emigration  Jane  again. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  329 


XXXIX 

BUT  even  without  W.  Keyse  and  the  vanished  author  of  "  Fare 
'Air's "  letters  the  ferny  tree-fringed  kloof  at  the  bottom  of 
which  the  beer-coloured  river  ran  over  its  granite  boulders  and 
quartz  pebbles,  was  not  empty  and  void.  On  Sundays,  when 
the  birds  returned  from  the  hills,  to  which  they  had  been 
scared  by  the  hideous  tumult  of  War,  thither  after  High  Mass 
in  the  battered  little  Roman  Catholic  church  in  the  stad,  the 
Mother-Superior  and  the  Sisters  would  come,  bringing  with 
them  such  poor  food  as  they  had,  and  picnic  soberly.  All  the 
week  through  they  had  laboured,  nursed,  and  tended  the  sick 
and  wounded  in  the  Hospitals,  and  washed  and  fed  and  taught 
the  numberless  orphans  of  the  siege,  and  upon  this  day  the 
Mother-Superior  had  ruled  they  were  to  be  together.  And 
all  the  week  through  the  thought  of  it  kept  them  going,  as  she 
knew.  You  are  to  see  her  holding  her  little  court  beside  the 
river  upon  a  certain  February  afternoon,  receiving  friends  in 
her  sweet,  stately  fashion,  and  dispensing  hospitality  out  of  the 
largest  and  most  battered  Britannia-metal  teapot  that  ever 
brewed,  what  was  later  originally  referred  to  in  the  weekly 
"  Social  Jottings "  column  of  the  Gueldersdorp  Siege  Gazette 
as  the  cheering  infusion.  The  Siege  Gazette  was  an  inter- 
mittent daily,  issued  from  a  subterranean  printing-office,  for 
the  dissemination  of  general  orders  and  latest  news,  fluctua- 
tions in  the  weight  and  quality  of  the  meat-rations,  and  the 
rise  and  fall  of  the  free-soup  level,  being  also  recorded.  To 
its  back  files  I  must  refer  those  who  seek  a  fuller  account  of  the 
function  described  by  the  brilliant  journalist  who  signed  her- 
self "Gold  Pen,"  as  highly  successful.  She  gives  you  to  un- 
derstand that  the  company  was  distinguished,  and  the  conver- 
sation vivid  and  unflagging.  And  when  you  realize  that  every- 
body present  was  suffering  more  or  less  from  the  active  pinch 
of  hunger,  that  social  gathering  of  men  and  women  of  British 
blood  becomes  heroic  and  historic  and  fine. 

"  Dr.  Saxham,  Attached  Medical  Staff,  was  observed,"  we 
read.     "  Gold  Pen  "  also  notes  "  the  presence  of  the  Reverend 

Julius  Fraithorn,  son  of  the  Bishop  of   H ,   and  second 

curate — on  leave — of  St.  Margaret's,  Wendish  Street;  now 
happily  recovered,  thanks  to  the  skill  of  Dr.  Saxham,  from  an 
illness,  held  at  no  recent  date  to  be  incurable.  Mr.  Fraithorn 
has  undertaken  the  onerous  duties  of  Chaplain  to  the  Hospitals 


330  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

in  charge  of  the  Military  Staff.  It.  was  gratifying  to  observe," 
she  continues,  "  that  the  Colonel  commanding  graced  the  oc- 
casion by  his  martial  presence.  He  was  attended  by  his  junior 
aide,  Lieutenant  the  Earl  of  Beauvayse.  We  also  saw  Lady 
Hannah  Wrynche,  with  her  distinguished  husband,  Captain 
Bingo  Wrynche.  Royal  Heavy  Dragoons,  Acting  Senior  Aide," 
etc.,  etc. 

"  Late  peaches  from  the  garden  of  the  ruined  Convent,  and 
grapes  from  its  west  wall,  gathered  in  the  dead  of  night  by 
Sister  Cleophee  and  Sister  Tobias,"  "  Gold  Pen "  goes  on  to 
say,  "  were  greatly  appreciated  by  the  guests,  each  of  whom 
brought  his  or  her  own  bread." 

A  most  villainous  kind  of  bannock  of  unleavened  mealie- 
meal  and  crushed  oats,  calculated  to  try  the  strongest  tea  and 
trouble  the  toughest  digestion,  "  Gold  Pen  "  might  have  added. 
But  the  game  was  to  make  believe  you  rather  enjoyed  it  than 
otherwise.  If  you  had  no  teeth  and  no  digestion,  you  were 
allowed  a  pint  and  a  half  of  sowens  porridge  instead,  and  thus 
helped  your  portion  of  exhausted  cavalry  mount  or  your  bit  of 
tough  mule-meat  down.  And  so  you  went  on  like  your  neigh- 
bours, playing  the  game,  while  your  eyes  grew  larger  and  your 
girth  less,  and  your  cheekbones  more  in  evidence  with  every 
day  that  dawned. 

Cheekbones  have  a  strange,  unnatural  effect  when  they  ap- 
pear in  childish  faces.  There  was  a  child  in  a  rusty  double 
perambulator  that  had  been  a  stylish  baby-carriage  only  a  little 
while  ago,  whose  wizened  face  and  shrunken  hands  were  piti- 
able to  see.  He  was  wheeled  by  a  sallow  woman,  with  hol- 
low, grey-blue  eyes — a  woman  whose  black  gown  hung  loosely 
on  her  wasted  figure,  and  whose  shabby,  crape-trimmed  hat  was 
pinned  on  anyhow.  Siege  confinement  and  siege  terrors,  siege 
smells  and  siege  diet,  had  made  strange  havoc  of  the  plump 
comeliness  of  a  matronly  lady  who  once  rustled  in  purple  satin 
befitting  a  Mayor's  wife.  She  had  lost  one  of  her  children 
through  diphtheria,  and  she  knew;  unless  a  miracle  happened, 
that  she  would  also  lose  the  boy. 

Only  look  at  him!  She  told  you  in  that  dull,  toneless  voice 
of  hers  how  sturdy  he  had  been,  how  strong  and  masterful — 
how  pretty,  too,  with  his  plume  of  fair  hair  tumbling  into  his 
big,  shining,  grey  eyes!  The  eyes  were  bigger  than  ever  now, 
but  the  light  and  the  life  had  sunk  out  of  them,  and  his  round 
face  was  pinched,  and  the  colour  of  old  wax.  And  the  arm 
lhat  hung  idly  over  the  side  of  the  little  carriage  was  withered 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  331 

and  shrunken — the  hand  of  an  old  man,  and  not  a  child.  The 
other,  under  the  light  shawl  that  tucked  him  in,  hugged  some- 
thing that  bulged  under  the  coverlet. 

"  His  father  can't  bear  to  look  at  him,"  the  Mayor's  wife 
said,  glancing  at  the  Mayor's  carefully  averted  back.  "And 
I'm  sure  it's  no  wonder.  He  just  lies  like  this,  day  and  night, 
and  doesn't  want  to  move  or  answer  when  you  speak  to  him, 
and  he  won't  eat.  The  food  is  dreadful,  but  still  he  might  try, 
just  to  comfort  his  mother " 

"  I  does  twy,"  piped  Hammy  weakly,  "  and  ven  my  tummy 
shuts,  and  it  isn't  no  use  twying  any  more." 

The  Mother-Superior  brought  a  gaily-coloured  little  china 
cup  of  that  rare  luxury,  new  milk,  and  bent  over  him,  saying 
cheerfully,  as  she  held  it  to  the  colourless  mouth,  "  Not  always, 
Hammy.  Taste  this,  and  see." 

"  No  fank  you."  He  turned  his  head  away,  tightly  shutting 
his  eyes. 

"  It's  real  milk,  Harruny,  not  condensed,"  the  soft  voice 
pleaded.  He  shook  his  head  again,  and  knit  his  childish 
brows. 

"  I  saided  it  wasn't  no  use.     My  tummy  just  shuts." 

"  I  think  I  would  not  worry  him  any  more  just  now,"  Sax- 
ham  interposed,  noting  the  droop  of  the  piteous,  flaccid  mouth, 
and  feeling  the  flutter  of  the  trembling  pulse.  The  Mayor's 
wife  broke  into  helpless  sobbing.  The  Mother-Superior  drew 
her  swiftly  out  of  the  sick  child's  hearing  and  sight.  And  a 
shadow  fell  upon  the  thin  light  coverlet,  and  a  crisp,  decided 
voice  said: 

"  Then  Hammy 's  tummy  is  a  mutinous  soldier,  and  must 
be  taught  to  obey  the  Word  of  Command." 

"  Mister  Colonel  .  .  ."  The  dull,  childish  eyes  grew  a 
very  little  brighter,  and  the  claw-like  hand  went  up  in  shaky 
salute  to  the  limp  plume  of  fair  hair,  not  glistening  and  silky 
now,  but  dull  and  unkempt,  that  fell  over  the  broad,  darkly- 
veined  waxen  forehead. — "  It  is  Mister  Colonel.  .  .  .  And 
I  haven't  seen  you  for  ever  an'  ever  so  long.  An'  Berta's 

deaded,  an',  an' "  The  whisper  was  almost  inaudible. 

...  "  Vere's  something  I  did  so  want  to  tell."  The  hidden 
arm  came  from  under  the  coverings.  "  It's  about  my  winoce- 
wus,  vis  beast  what  you  gived  me,  ever  so  long  ago."  He  dis- 
played the  treasured  toy. 

"You  shall  tell  me  about  Berta  and  the  rhinoceros  when 
I  have  told  you  something.  A  Certain  Person  can  come  out 


332  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

of  this  vehicle,  I  suppose,  Saxham?  It  will  make  no  differ- 
ence, in  the  long-run,  to  a  Certain  Person's  health  ?  " 

"  Why,  nothing  in  Heaven  or  upon  earth  will  make  any 
difference  at  this  juncture,"  returned  Saxham,  speaking  in  the 
same  tone,  "  unless  a  Certain  Person  can  be  roused  to  the  nec- 
essary pitch  of  desiring  food.  To  administer  it  forcibly  would, 
in  my  opinion,  be  worse  than  useless." 

The  Certain  Person  was  lifted  out  of  his  cramped  quarters 
by  vigorous  but  gentle  hands.  The  Colonel  Commanding  sat 
down  with  him  upon  a  camp-stool,  and  as  the  wasted  legs 
dangled  irresponsibly  from  his  supporting  knees,  and  the  hot 
head  rolled  helplessly  against  the  row  of  coloured  bits  of  medal- 
ribbon  that  were  sewn  on  the  left  breast  of  the  khaki  jacket, 
he  began  to  talk,  holding  the  limp  little  body  with  a  kind,  sus- 
taining arm. 

"  You've  seen  how  my  men  obey  me,  Hammy?  Well,  your 
brain  and  your  eyes,  your  arms  and  legs,  and  hands  and  feet, 
as  well  as  your  tummy,  are  your  soldiers.  And  it's  mutiny  if 
they  refuse  to  carry  out  the  Officer's  Orders.  And  you're  the 
Officer,  you  know." 

"Am  I  ve  Officer,  weally?" 

Interest  was  quickening  in  the  heavy  eyes. 

"You're  the  Officer.  And  I'm  the  Colonel  in  Command. 
And  when  I  say  to  you,  '  Lieutenant  Hammy,  drink  this  milk/ 
why,  you'll  pass  along  the  order  to  Sergeant  Brain  and  Cor- 
poral Eyes  and  Privates  Hands  and  Mouth  and  Tummy,  and 

see  that  they  carry  it  out.  Where  is ?  Ah!  thank  you, 

ma'am;  that  was  what  I  wanted." 

For  the  Mother-Superior  had  deftly  put  the  gaily-coloured 
little  china  cup  into  the  lean,  brown,  outstretched  hand,  and, 
seeing  what  was  coming,  the  Lieutenant  shed  an  unsoldierly 
tear  and  raised  a  feeble  whimper. 

"  Please,  no,  Mister  Colonel !     My  tummy " 

"  Private  Tummy  is  a  shirker,  who  doesn't  want  to  do  his 
duty.  But  it's  your  duty  as  his  Commanding  Officer  to  show 
him  that  it  must  be  done.  And  that's  the  game  we're  playing. 
You'll  employ  tact  before  you  have  recourse  to  stringent  meas- 
ures. Not  make  the  fellow  dogged  or  furious  by  angry  words 
or  threats.  When  it's  necessary  to  shoot,  shoot  straight.  But, 
first,  you  give  the  order." 

"  Oughtn't  ve  officer  to  have  a  wevolver?  " 

"  Wait  a  second,  and  you  shall  have  mine." 

The  deft  fingers  twirled  out  and    pocketed    the   cartridge- 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  333 

packed  chambers,  and  put  the  harmless  weapon  into  the  child- 
ish hands. 

"  It's  veway  heavy,"  Hammy  said  dolefully,  as  the  shining 
Army  Smith  &  Wesson  wobbled  in  his  feeble  clutches,  wavered 
and  sank  ingloriously  down  upon  his  lap. 

"  If  you  had  drunk  the  milk  you  might  have  found  it  lighter. 
Suppose  we  try  now.  Attention !  " 

— "  'Tention !  "  piped  Hammy. 

"  Hands,  catch  hold.  Mouth,  do  your  duty.  And  if  Priv- 
ate Tummy  disobeys,  he'll  have  to  take  the  consequences." 

"Please,  what  are  ve  confequences?  " 

"  Drink  down  the  milk,  and  then  I'll  tell  you." 

The  gay  little  china  cup  was  slowly  emptied.  Hammy 
blinked  eyes  that  were  already  growing  sleepy,  and  sucked  the 
moustache  of  white  from  his  upper  lip  with  relish  remark- 
ing: 

"  I  dwinked  it  all,  and  my  tummy  never  shut.  Now  tell 
me  what  are  ve  confequences." 

"  A  mother  without  a  son,  for  one  thing."  The  keen,  hawk- 
eyes  were  gentle.  "  But  drink  plenty  of  milk  and  eat  plenty 
of  bread  and  porridge  and  minced  meat,  and  you'll  live  to  see 
the  Relief  marching  into  Gueldersdorp  one  fine  morning,, 
boy." 

"  Unless  I  get  deaded  like  Berta.  And  that  weminds  me 
what  I  wanted  to  tell  so  bad."  The  lips  began  to  quiver,  and 
the  eyes  brimmed.  *  Soldiers  mustn't  cwy,  must  vey?" 

"  Not  while  there's  work  to  be  done,  Hammy.  Would  you 
like  to  wait  now  and  tell  me  another  day?"  For  the  little 
round  head  was  nodding  against  the  row  of  medal-ribbons 
stitched  on  the  khaki  jacket,  and  the  big  round  eyes  kept  open 
with  difficulty. 

"  No,  please.  It's  about  the  beasts — my  beasts  what  you 
gived  me.  Winocerwus,  an'  Lion,  an'  Tawantula,  an'  Tsetse, 
an'  Black  Bee — just  like  a  weal  Bee,  only  not  so  sharp  at  ve 
end.  .  .  .  Don't  you  wemember,  Mister  Colonel  ?  " 

"  Of  course  I  remember.  The  toy  beasts  I  brought  down 
from  Rhodesia  and  gave  to  a  little  boy." 

"  I  was  the  boy.  And — you  saided  I  was  to  let  Berta  have 
her  share  wof  dem.  And  I  did  let  her  play  wif  all  ve  ovvers. 
But  Winocerwus  had  to  be  tooked  such  care  wof  for  fear  of 
bweaking  his  horn — an'  Berta  was  such  a  little  fing,  vat — 
vat •" 

"That  you  wouldn't  let  her  play  with   Rhinoceros.      And 


334  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

you  think  it  wasn't  quite  fair,  or  quite  kind,  and  now  you're 
sorry?  " 

Hammy  sniffed  dolorously,  and  two  large  tears  splashed 
down. 

"  I'm  sowwy.  An'  I  fought  if  I  was  deaded  too,  like  Berta, 
I  could  go  an'  tell  her  I  never  meaned  to  be  gweedy.  An'  I 
wouldn't  eat  my  bweakfust,  nor  my  dinner,  nor  nothing — and 
at  last  my  tummy  shut,  and  I  didn't  want  miffing  more." 

The  Mother-Superior  and  the  Colonel  Commanding  ex- 
changed a  glance  over  the  child's  head  before  the  man's  voice 
answered  the  child. 

"  That  wouldn't  have  made  Berta  happy.  She  might  have 
thought  you  a  little  coward  for  running  away  and  leaving 
your  mother  and  all  the  other  ladies  behind,  shut  up  in  Gueld- 
ersdorp.  For  an  officer  and  a  gentleman  must  go  on  living 
and  fighting  while  he  has  anything  left  to  fight  for,  Hammy. 
Remember  that." 

"  Yes,  Mister  Colonel.  .  .  ."  The  drowsy  eyes  closed,  the 
boy  nodded  off  into  slumber  against  the  kind,  strong  shoulder. 
The  Mother-Superior  wheeled  the  little  carriage  near,  and  the 
Colonel,  rising,  laid  the  now  soundly-sleeping  boy  back  upon 
his  cushions. 

"  What  mysteries  children  are!  "  he  said,  as  the  Mother  re- 
placed the  light  covering,  screening  the  sleeping  face  with 
tender,  careful  hands  from  sun  and  flies.  "  Imagine  remorse 
for  an  act  of  selfishness  leading  a  boy  of  six  to  such  a  de- 
termination— and  a  normal,  healthy  boy,  if  ever  I  met 
one." 

"  He  has  been  living  for  some  time  under  abnormal  condi- 
tions," the  Mother  said  softly,  looking  at  the  quiet  rise  and 
fall  of  the  light  shawl  covering.  "  He  will  take  a  turn  for  the 
better  now." 

"  And  forget  his  trouble  and  its  cause."  The  Chief's  ob- 
servant glance  had  lighted  on  Rhinoceros,  lying  upside  down 
in  a  little  clump  of  flowering  sword-grass,  into  which  it  had 
been  whisked  as  the  Mother  shook  out  the  little  shawl.  "  I 
think,"  he  said,  and  pocketed  the  horned  one,  "  that  this  gen- 
tleman had  better  go  into  the  fire." 

"  Perhaps.  And  yet  it  would  be  a  continual  reminder  to 
conquer  selfishness  in  great  as  in  little  things."  She  smiled, 
meeting  the  keen  hazel  eyes  with  her  great  pure  grey  ones. 

"  If  you  thing  so,  I  will  leave  it." 

"  I    will   not   take    the   responsibility   of    advising   you    to. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  335 

You  have  already  shown  more  tact  than  I  can  lay  claim  to 
in  dealing  with  children.  And  that  has  been  the  business  of 
the  greater  part  of  my  life,  remember." 

He  looked  at  her  full,  and  said: 

"  I  may  possess  and  employ  tact  when  dealing  with  men 
and  with  children,  possibly.  But  not  long  ago  I  was  guilty 
of — and  have  since  bitterly  reproached  myself  for,  I  beg  you 
to  believe  me — a  gross  and  lamentable  blunder  as  regards  a 
woman •" 

She  put  out  her  fine  hand  with  a  quick,  protesting  gesture, 
as  if  she  would  have  begged  him  to  say  no  more.  He  went 
on: 

"  She  is  a  lady  whom  you  intimately  know,  and  whom  I 
have,  like  everyone  else  in  this  town,  learned  to  esteem  highly 
and  to  respect  profoundly.  For  the  terrible  shock  and  the 
deep  pain  I  must  have  given  that  lady  in  breaking  to  her 
ignorantly  and  hastily  the  news  of  the  death  of  a  friend  who 
was  dear  to  me,  and  infinitely  dearer  to — another  with  whom 
she  is  acquainted — I  humbly  entreat  her  pardon," 

He  had  not  known  her  eyes  were  of  so  deep  a  purple-grey 
as  to  be  nearly  black.  Perhaps  they  seemed  so  by  contrast 
with  the  absolute  whiteness  of  her  face.  The  eyes  winced, 
and  the  mouth  contracted  as  she  entreated,  voicelessly: 

"  I  beg  you,  say  no  more." 

"  I  have  but  little  more  to  say,"  he  returned.  "  I  will  only 
add  that  if  at  any  time  you  wished  in  kindness  to  make  me 
forget  what  I  did  that  day  you  would  apply  to  me  in  some 
difficulty,  honour  me  with  some  confidence,  trust  me  in  any 
unforeseen  emergency  in  which  I  might  be  of  use  to  you.  Or 
to — anyone  who  is  dear  to  you,  and  in  whom  for  the  sake  of 
old  associations  and  old  ties  I  might  even  otherwise  be  deeply 
interested." 

He  had  spoken  with  intention,  and  now  his  deliberate 
glance  dropped  to  the  level  of  the  strip  of  sandy  shore  beside 
the  river,  where  the  giant  Convent  kettle  boiled  upon  a  dis- 
proportionately little  fire,  and  Sister  Hilda- Antony  presided 
in  the  Reverend  Mother's  place  at  the  trestle-supported  tray 
where  the  Britannia-metal  teapot  brooded,  as  doth  the  large 
domestic  hen,  over  an  immense  family  of  cups  and  saucers. 
Busy  as  ants,  the  other  Sisters  hurried  backwards  and  for- 
wards, attending  to  the  wants  of  the  guests,  who  sat  about  on 
rocks  and  boulders,  or  with  due  precautions  taken  against  puff- 
adders  and  tarantulas,  sat  upon  the  grass  of  the  high  bank  in 


336  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

the  shade  of  the  fern  and  bush.  And  as  vivid  by  contrast  with 
their  black-robed,  white-wimpled  figures,  as  a  slender  dragon- 
fly among  a  bevy  of  homely  gnats,  the  slender,  lightly-clad 
figure  of  Lynette  showed,  as  she  shared  the  Sister's  hospitable 
labours. 

She  had  her  share  of  girlish  vanity.  She  had  put  on  a 
plain  tailor-made  skirt  of  fine  dark  green  cloth,  short  enough 
to  show  the  dainty  little  brown  buckled  shoes  that  she  specially 
effected,  and  a  thin  white  silk  shirt  and  knitted  croquet-jacket 
of  white  wool.  A  scarlet  leather  belt  girt  her  slender  waist, 
and  a  silver  chatelaine  jingled  a  gay  tune  at  her  side,  and 
about  her  white  slim  throat  was  a  band  of  scarlet  velvet,  and 
her  wide-brimmed  white  felt  hat  had  a  knot  of  scarlet  in  it, 
and  a  broad,  vivid,  emerald-green  wing-quill  thrust  under 
the  knot.  And  the  hair  under  the  green-plumed  hat  gleamed 
bronze  in  the  sunshine  that  filtered  through  the  thick  foliage 
of  the  blue  gum  trees  that  grew  on  either  bank  of  the  river, 
and  stretched  their  branches  out  to  clasp  across  the  stream,  like 
hands.  She  was  too  pale  and  too  thin,  and  her  eyes  were 
feverishly  bright,  but  she  looked  happy,  carrying  her  tray  of 
steaming  teacups  in  spite  of  Beauvayse's  anxious  attempts  to 
relieve  her  of  the  burden,  and  the  Chaplain's  diffident  entreaties 
that  she  should  entrust  it  to  him.  Their  voices,  mingled  in 
gay  argument,  were  borne  by  a  warm  puff  of  spice-scented  air 
to  the  ears  of  the  elder  people,  standing  in  the  shade  of  the 
trees  at  the  summit  of  the  high,  sloping  bank,  with  the  rusty 
perambulator  between  them. 

"  I  thank  you,"  the  Mother  said,  in  her  full,  round  tones. 
The  eyes  of  both,  travelling  back  from  that  delicate,  slight 
young  figure,  had  met  once  more.  "  Believing  that  you  speak 
in  perfect  sincerity,  I  thank  you,  and  shall  not  hesitate  to  call 
upon  you,  should  the  need  arise." 

Her  voice  was  very  calm,  and  her  discreet  glance  told 
nothing.  He  would  not  have  been  a  man  of  woman  born  if 
he  had  not  been  a  little  piqued.  He  said,  with  an  air  of  chang- 
ing the  subject: 

"  Miss  Mildare  strikes  me  as  a  very  beautiful  girl." 

"Is  she  not?" 

Her  eyes  grew  tender,  and  her  whole  face  was  irradiated 
by  the  splendour  of  her  smile.  She  looked  down  the  bushed 
and  grass-covered  slope  to  where  Lynette,  all  the  guests  sup- 
plied, had  thrown  herself  down  to  rest  on  a  stone  under  a 
tree.  She  had  taken  off  her  hat,  and  her  hair  was  flecked 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  337 

with  sunshine  as  she  leaned  her  head  back  with  a  little 
air  of  lassitude  and  weariness  against  the  scarred  bark. 
But  in  spite  of  weariness  she  was  smiling  and  content. 
The  rest  was  delicious,  the  peaceful  quiet  enchanting,  the  air 
sweet  after  the  foetid  odours  of  the  town;  and  it  was  sweet, 
too,  whenever  she  glanced  at  the  Reverend  Julius  Fraithorn, 
who  was  lying  at  her  feet,  or  Beauvayse,  who  fanned  her  alter- 
nately with  a  leafy  branch  and  the  tea-tray,  to  see  her  own 
beauty  reflected  in  the  admiring  eyes  of  two  young  and  hand- 
some men. 

The  Mother  had  never  seen  her  thus  before.  She  had  been 
absent  from  the  scenes  of  Lynette's  little  social  triumphs.  Now 
a  great  tenderness  swelled  in  her  bosom,  and  a  great  pity 
gripped  her  throat,  and  wrung  the  bitter,  slow  tears  into  her 
eyes. 

"  She  is  happy,"  she  whispered  in  her  heart.  "  She  has 
forgotten  just  for  a  little  while,  and  her  kingdom  of  woman- 
hood is  hers,  unspoiled,  and  the  present  moment  is  sweet,  and 
the  future  she  has  no  thought  of.  My  poor,  poor  love!  Let 
her  go  on  forgetting,  even  if  it  is  only  for  a  day." 

His  voice  beside  her  made  her  start.  He  was  still  speaking 
of  Lynette. 

"  Her  type  is  unusual — amongst  Colonials." 

She  returned :  "  She  was  born  in  the  Colony,  I  believe." 

"  Ah!  but  of  British  parents,  surely?  I  once  knew  an  Eng- 
lish lady,"  he  went  steadily  on,  "  whom  she  resembles  strik- 
ingly." 

Her  eyes  were  inscrutable,  and  her  lips  were  folded  close. 

"  She  was  the  wife  of  the  Colonel  commanding  my  old 
Regiment — Sir  George  Hawting.  A  grand  old  warrior,  and 
something  of  a  martinet.  He  married  a  third  daughter  of  the 
Duke  of  Runcorn — Lady  Lucy  Bridgevvater." 

She  heard  without  the  betraying  flicker  of  an  eyelash,  her 
face  statuesque  in  the  setting  of  the  close  white  guimpe. 

He  said,  with  a  prick  of  self-reproach  for  having  again 
turned  the  barb  that  festered  in  her  bosom: 

"  Lady  Lucy  was  a  very  lovely  creature,  and  a  very  impul- 
sive one.  She  lived  not  happily,  and  she  died  tragically." 

There  was  the  ring  of  steel  and  the  coldness  of  ice  in  the 
Mother's  words: 

"  She  met  the  fate  she  chose." 

He  thought,  looking  at  her: 

"What   a  woman   this  is!     How  silent,   how  resourceful, 


338  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

how  calm,  how  Immeasurably  deep!  And  why  does  she  think 
of  me  as  an  opponent?"  He  went  on,  stung  by  that  quiet 
marshalling  of  all  her  forces  against  him: 

"  Unhappily,  the  fate  we  choose  for  ourselves  sometimes 
involves  others.  The  death  of  that  unhappy  woman  and  the 
father  of  her  child  left  an  innocent  creature  at  the  mercy  of 
sordid,  evil  hands." 

"  In  evil  hands,  indeed,  judging  by — what  you  have  tcld 
me." 

"  I  would  give  much  to  be  able  to  trace  her."  There  was 
ta  heavy  line  between  his  eyebrows,  and  his  eyes  were  stern  and 
sad.  "  It  would  be  something  to  know  what  had  become  of 
her,  even  if  she  were  dead,  or  worse  than  dead." 

A  violent,  sudden  scarlet  dyed  her  to  the  edge  of  the  white 
starched  coif.  Her  mouth  writhed  as  though  words  were 
bursting  from  her;  but  she  nipped  her  lips  together,  and  con- 
trolled her  eyes.  And  still  her  silence  angered  and  defied  him. 
He  went  on: 

"  If  I  seem  to  you  to  harp  painfully  upon  this  subject, 
pardon  me.  You  have  my  word  that,  without,  encourage- 
ment from  you,  I  will  not  refer  to  it  after  to-day."  His 
close-clipped  brown  moustache  was  straightened  by  the  ten- 
sion of  the  muscles  of  his  mouth.  He  passed  his  palm  over 
it,  and  continued  speaking  without,  moving  a  muscle  of  his 
face  or  taking  his  searching  eyes  from  the  Mother's. 

"  The  name  of  the  young  lady  who  is  so  fortunate  as  to  be 
your  ward,  and  even  more,  the  striking  likeness  I  spoke  of 
just  now,  have  led  me  to  hope  that  my  dead  friend's  daughter 
was  led  by  a  Hand,  in  whose  Divine  guidance  I  humbly  be- 
lieve, to  find  the  very  shelter  he  would  have  chosen  for  her. 
Pray  answer,  acquitting  me  in  your  own  mind  of  persistence 
or  inquisitiveness.  Am  I  right  or  wrong?" 

She  might  have  been  a  statue  of  black  marble,  with  wimple 
and  face  and  hands  of  alabaster,  she  stood  so  breathlessly  still. 
Her  heart  did  not  seem  to  beat;  her  blood  was  stagnant  in 
her  veins.  She  felt  no  faintness.  Her  observation  was  un- 
naturally keen,  her  mind  dazzlingly  clear;  her  brain  seemed  to 
work  with  twice  its  ordinary  power.  She  thought.  He 
glanced  at  the  shabby  watch  worn  in  a  leather  band  upon  his 
wrist.  She  was  aware  of  the  action,  though  she  never  turned 
her  head.  She  was  weighing  the  question,  to  tell  or  not  to 
tell?  Her  soul  hung  poised  like  a  seagull  in  the  momentary 
shelter  of  a  giant  wave-crest.  Another  moment,  and  the  battle 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  339 

with  the  raging  gale  and  the  driving  halberds  of  the  sleet 
would  begin  again. 

She  looked  again  towards  Lynette,  and  in  an  instant  her 
purpose  crystallized,  her  line  of  action  was  made  clear.  She 
saw  a  little  bunch  of  wax-belled  white  heath  fall  from  the 
girl's  scarlet  belt  in  the  act  of  rising.  She  saw  Beauvayse 
snatch  it  greedily  from  the  grass  and  read  the  glance  that 
passed  between  the  golden-hazel  and  the  green-grey  eyes,  and 
understood  with  a  great  pang  of  jealous  mother-pain  that  she 
was  no  longer  first  in  her  beloved's  heart.  Then  came  a  throb 
of  unselfish  joy  at  the  knowledge  that  Richard's  girl  had  come 
into  her  kingdom,  that  the  divine  right  and  heritage  and  crown 
of  Womanhood  were  hers  at  last. 

Were  hers?  Not  yet,  but  might,  be  hers,  if  every  clue  that 
led  back  to  that  tavern  upon  the  veld  could  be  broken  or 
tangled  in  such  wise  that  the  keenest  and  most  subtle  seeker 
should  be  baffled  and  lost.  It  all  lav  clear  before  her  now, 
the  manipulation  of  events,  the  deft  rearrangement  of  actual 
fact  that  might  best  be  used  to  this  end.  As  her  clear  brain 
planned,  her  bleeding  heart  trailed  wings  in  the  dust,  seeking 
to  lead  the  searcher  away  from  the  hidden  nest,  and  now  her 
motherhood  and  her  pride  and  all  the  diplomacy  acquired  in 
her  long  years  of  rule  rose  up  in  arms  to  meet  him. 

They  were  of  equal  height.  Her  great,  changeful  eyes, 
purple-grey  now,  swept  round  to  encounter  his.  She  regarded 
him  quietly,  and  said: 

"  No  one  of  your  wide  experience  needs  to  be  reminded  that 
resemblances  such  as  that  of  which  you  speak,  and  which  I 
cannot  myself  admit  to  exist,  are  strangely  misleading.  But 
since  you  have  conveyed  to  me  in  unmistakable  terms  your 
conviction  that  Miss  Mildare  is  the  daughter  of — a  mutual 
friend  who  bore  that  surname — is  identified  in  your  idea  with 
that  most  unhappy  child  who  was  left  orphaned  eighteen  years 
ago — at — I  think  you  said  a  veld  hotel  in  the  Orange  Free 
State?" 

He  bowed  assent,  biting  the  short  hairs  of  his  moustache  in 
vexation  and  embarrassment. 

"  Hardly  an  hotel — a  wretched  shanty  of  the  usual  cor- 
rugated-iron and  mud-wall  type,  in  the  high  grass  country  be- 
tween Driepoort  and  Kroonfontein.  And — it  seems  my  fate 
to  be  continually  bringing  our  conversation  back  to  a — most 
unhappy  and  painful  theme." 

"  I  acquit  you  of  the  intention  to  pain  or  wound.     When 


340  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

I  have  finished  what  I  have  to  say,  we  will  revert  to  the 
subject  no  more.  It  will  be  buried  between  us  for  ever, 
though  the  memory  of  the  Dead  live  in  our  pardoning  and 
loving  thoughts,  and  in  our  prayers." 

The  vivid  colour  that  had  flamed  in  her  cheeks  had  sunk 
and  left  them  marble.  The  humid  mist  of  tears  that  veiled 
her  eyes  gave  them  a  wonderful  beauty. 

He  answered  her: 

"  Your  thoughts  could  not  be  otherwise  than  noble  and 
generous.  Prayers  as  pure  as  yours  could  not  be  unheard." 

"  No  prayers  are  unheard,  though  all  are  not  granted." 

She  made  the  slight  gesture  with  her  large,  beautiful  hand 
that  put  unnecessary  speech  from  her,  and  let  the  hand  drop 
again  by  her  side.  Her  bosom  rose  and  fell  quietly  with  her 
even  speaking.  None  could  have  guessed  the  tumult  within, 
and  the  doubts  and  conviction  and  apprehensions  that  swelled 
together,  and  the  religious  fears  and  scruples  that  rent  and  tore 
her  suffering  soul.  But  for  the  sake  of  Richard's  daughter 
she  rallied  her  grand  forces,  and  nerved  herself  to  carry  out 
her  hated  task. 

"  I  will  tell  you  how  I  came  to  be  interested  in  the  young 
lady  who  is  now  my  adopted  daughter,  and  whom  you  know 
as  Lynette  Mildare.  In  the  winter  of  18 —  the  Reverend 
Mother  of  our  Convent  died,  and  I  was  sent  up  from  the 
Mother-House  at.  Natal,  by  order  of  the  Bishop,  to  take  her 
place  as  Superior.  Two  Sisters  came  with  me.  It  was  the 
usual  slow  journey  of  many  weeks.  The  wet  season  had  be- 
gun. Perhaps  that  was  why  we  did  not  encounter  many  other 
waggons  on  the  way.  But  one  party  of  emigrants  of  the 
labouring  class — we  never  learned  where  bound — trekked  on 
before  us,  and  generally  outspanned  within  sight.  There 
were  three  rough  Englishmen — two  middle-aged  and  one  quite 
old — a  couple  of  tawdry  women,  and  a  young  girl.  They 
used  to  ill-treat  the  girl.  We  heard  her  crying  often,  and  one 
of  the  Kaffir  voor-loopers  of  their  two  waggons  told  a  Cape 
boy  who  was  in  our  service  that  the  old  Baas  would  kill  the 
little  white  thing  one  of  these  days.  She  was  used  as  a 
drudge  by  them  all — a  servant,  unpaid,  ill-fed,  worse-clothed 
than  the  Kaffirs — but  the  old  man,  according  to  our  informant, 
bore  her  a  special  grudge,  and  lost  no  opportunity  of  wrecking 
his  malice  on  her." 

"  I  understand,"  he  said.     She  went  on: 

"  We  would  have  helped  the  child  if  we  could  have  reached 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  341 

her;  but  it  was  not  possible.  If  she  had  run  away  and  taken 
refuge  with  us,  and  the  men  had  followed  her,  I  do  not  think 
we  should  have  given  her  up  for  any  threats  of  theirs,  or  even 
for  threats  carried  out  in  action." 

"  I  know  you  never  would  have." 

She  made  the  slight  gesture  with  her  hand  that  put  all 
inferred  praise  aside. 

"  The  waggons  of  the  emigrants  were  no  longer  in  sight, 
one  morning  when  we  inspanned.  They  had  headed  south 
for  the  Diamond  Mines,  and  we  were  going  northwest." 
There  was  a  slight  hesitation,  and  her  lashes  flickered,  then 
she  took  up  her  story.  "  Perhaps  we  \vere  a  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  from  Gueldersdorp,  perhaps  more,  when  we  came 
upon  what  we  believed  at  first  to  be  the  dead  body  of  a  young 
girl,  almost  a  child,  lying  among  the  Karroo  bush,  face  down- 
wards, upon  the  sand.  She  had  been  cruelly  beaten  with  the 
sjambok — she  bears  the  scars  of  that  terrible  ill-usage  to-day. 
.  .  .  We  judged  that  she  had  fainted  and  fallen  from  one  of 
the  emigrants'  trek-waggons.  Months  afterwards,  when  her 
wrounds  were  healed " — her  steady  lips  quivered  slightly — 
"  and  she  had  recovered  from  an  attack  of  brain-fever  brought 
on  by  alarm  and  anxiety  and  the  ill-usage,  she  told  me  that 
she  had  run  away  from  people  who  were  cruel  to  her — from 
a  man  who " 

"  This  distresses  you.     I  am  grieved " 

He  noted  the  sickness  of  horror  in  her  face,  and  the  start- 
ing of  innumerable  little  shining  points  of  moisture  on  her 
white,  broad  forehead  and  about  her  lips.  She  drew  out  her 
handkerchief  and  wiped  them  away  with  a  hand  that  shook  a 
little. 

"  I  have  very  little  more  to  say.  She  was  quite  crushed 
and  broken  by  cruelty  and  ill-usage.  Though  she  had  been 
taught  to  read  in  illiterate  fashion,  and  to  write — in  a  way, 
she  could  not  tell  us  her  name  when  we  asked  it.  She  prob- 
ably had  never  had  one.  And  Father  Wilx,  who  is  our  Con- 
vent Chaplain,  and  has  charge  of  the  Catholic  Mission  here, 
baptized  her  at  my  instance,  giving  her  two  names  that  were 
dear  to  me  in  that  old  life  that  I  left  behind  so  long  ago. 
She  is  Lynette  Mildare.  .  .  .  Are  you  surprised  that  in  six 
years  a  young  creature  so  neglected  should  have  become  what 
you  see?  Those  powers  were  inherent  in  her  which  training 
can  but  develop.  We  found  in  her  great  natural  capacity,  an 
intelligence  keen  and  quick,  a  taste  naturally  refined,  a  sweet 


342  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

and  gentle  disposition,  a  pure  and  loving  heart "  Her 

voice  broke.  Her  eyes  were  blinded  by  a  sudden  rush  of  tears. 
She  moved  her  hand  as  though  to  say :  "  There  is  no  more 
to  tell." 

"  You  shut  the  door  upon  my  hope/'  he  said. 

It  was  to  her  veritably  as  though  the  gates  of  her  own 
deed  clashed  behind  her  with  the  closing  of  the  sentence.  For 
she  had  stated  the  absolute  truth,  and  yet  left  much  untold. 
She  saw  disappointment  and  reluctant  conviction  in  his  face, 
coupled  with  an  immense  faith  in  her  that  stung  her  to  an 
agony  of  shame  and  self-reproach.  What  had  she  suppressed? 

Nothing,  but  that  the  waggons  of  the  emigrants  had  turned 
south  from  Diamond  Town  a  fortnight  before  the  rinding 
of  that  lost  lamb  upon  the  veld.  And  her  scrupulous  habit 
of  truth,  her  crystal  honour,  her  keen,  clear  judgment  no  less 
than  her  rigorous  habit  of  self-examination,  told  her  that  the 
half-truth  was  no  better  than  falsehood,  and  that  she,  Christ's 
Bride  and  Mary's  Daughter,  had  deliberately  deceived  this 
man. 

Yet  for  his  own  sake,  was  it  not  best  that  he  should  never 
know  the  truth!  And  for  the  sake  of  Richard's  daughter, 
was  it  not  her  sacred  maternal  duty  to  shield  that  dearest  one 
from  shame?  She  steeled  herself  with  that  as  he  bared  his 
head  before  her. 

"  Ma'am,  you  have  more  than  honoured  me  with  your  con- 
fidence, and  I  need  not  say  that  it  is  sacred  in  my  eyes,  and 
shall  be  kept  inviolate.  And  for  the  rest " 


XL 

"  REVEREND  MOTHER,"  sounded  from  below. 

"  They  are  calling  us,"  she  said,  as  though  awakened  from 
a  dream. 

"  May  I  take  you  down  ?  " 

He  offered  his  arm  with  deference,  and  she  touching  it 
lightly,  they  went  down  together.  Lynette  came  to  them 
laughing,  a  cup  in  either  hand,  her  aides-de-camp  following 
with  plates  that  held  the  siege  apology  for  bread  and  butter 
and  familiar-looking  cubes  of  something.  .  .  . 

"Thank  you,  Miss  Mildare.  What  have  you  here,  Beau? 
Cake,  upon  my  word!  Or  is  it  a  delusion  born  of  long  and 
painful  abstinence  from  any  form  of  pastry  ?  " 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  343 

"  Cake  it  is,  sir,  and  thundering  good  cake,"  proclaimed 
Beauvayse.  "  Made  from  Sister  Tobias'  special  siege  recipe, 
without  candied  peel  or  plums  or  carraways,  or  any  of  the 
other  what-do-you-call-'ems  that  go  into  the  ordinary  article. 
Go  in  and  win,  sir.  I've  had  three  whacks.  Haven't  I,  Miss 
Mildare?" 

He  spoke  with  the  infectious  enjoyment  of  a  schoolboy, 
and  Lynette's  laugh,  sweet  and  gay  as  a  thrush's  sudden  trill 
of  melody,  answered: 

"  I  think  you  have  had  four." 

She  flushed  as  she  met  the  Colonel's  eyes,  reading  in  them 
masculine  appreciation  of  her  delicate,  vivid  beauty,  and  put 
her  freed  hand  into  the  lean  palm  he  held  out,  saying,  with  a 
shy,  sweet  smile  that  lifted  one  corner  of  the  sensitive  mouth 
higher  than  the  other: 

"  I  didn't  come  to  say  How  do  you  do  before,  because  I 
saw  you  were  busy  talking  to  Mother."  Her  quick  glance 
read  something  amiss  in  another  face.  "  Mother,  how  tired 
you  look!  Please  bring  that  little  camp-stool,  Mr.  Fraithorn. 
Oh,  thank  you,  Dr.  Saxham;  that  one  with  arms  is  more 
comfortable.  Colonel,  we're  all  under  your  command. 
Won't  you  please  order  the  Mother  to  sit  down  and  rest? 
She  will  be  so  tired  to-morrow.  Dearest,  you  know  you  will." 

She  took  the  Mother's  hand,  confidently,  caressingly.  The 
end  of  the  thin  black  veil,  that  was  shabby  now,  and  had  darns 
in  many  places,  was  wafted  across  her  face  by  a  vagrant  puff 
of  cooled  air  from  the  river,  and  she  kissed  it,  bringing  the 
tears  very  near  the  deep,  sad  eyes  that  looked  at  her,  and  then 
turned  away.  Saxham,  in  default  of  any  excuse  for  lingering 
near  her,  went  back  to  Lady  Hannah,  who  had  been  diligently 
mining  in  him  with  the  pick  and  shovel  of  Our  Special  Corre- 
spondent, and  getting  nothing  out,  and  sat  himself  doggedly 
upon  the  stone  beside  her. 

"  That  is  a  sweet  girl."  She  nibbled  bannock,  sparsely 
margarined,  and  sipped  her  sugarless,  milkless  tea,  sitting  on  a 
little  shady  knoll,  warranted  free  from  puff-adders  and 
tarantulas.  Saxham  answered  stiffly: 

"  Many  people  here  seem  to  be  under — the  same  impres- 
sion." 

"Don't  you  share  it?     Don't  you  think  her  sweet?" 

"  I  have  seen  young  ladies  who  were — less  deserving  of  the 
adjective." 

Lady  Hannah  jangled  a  triumphant  laugh.     She  wore  the 


344  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

tailored  garb  the  average  Englishwoman  looks  best  in,  at  home 
and  abroad,  an  alpaca  coat  and  skirt  of  navy-blue,  and  a  big 
grey  hat  with  ostrich-plumes,  and  a  voluminous  blue  silk  veil. 
Her  small  face  was  smaller  than  ever,  but  her  eyes  were  as 
round  and  as  bright  as  a  mouse's  or  a  bird's,  and  her  talk  was 
full  of  glitter  and  vivacity. 

'  Praise  from  Dr.  Saxham.'  .  .  .  If  I  were  a  man,"  she 
declared,  "  I  should  perdre  la  boule  over  that  girl.  I  don't 
wonder  where  she  gets  her  lovely  manners  from,  with  such 
a  model  of  grace  and  good  breeding  as  Biddy  Bawne  before 
her  eyes,  but  I  do  ask  how  she  came  by  that  type  of  beauty. 
And  Biddy " 

"  Biddy  ?  "  repeated  Saxham,  at  a  loss. 

Her  laugh  shrilled  out. 

"  I  forgot.  She  is  the  Reverend  Mother-Superior  of  the 
Convent  to  all  of  you.  But  I  was  at  school  with  her,  and 
I  can't  forget  she  used  to  be  Biddy.  She  was  one  of  the 
great  girls,  and  I  was  a  sprat  of  nine,  but  she  condescended 
to  let  me  adore  her,  and  I  did,  like  everybody  else.  To  be 
adored  is  her  metier.  The  Sisters  swear  by  her,  and  that 
girl  worships  the  ground  under  her  feet.  If  I  had  a  daughter 
I  should  like  her  to  look  at  me  in  that  way — heart  in  her 
eyes,  don't  you  know,  and  what  eyes!  Topaz-coloured,  aren't 
they?  She  has  no  conversation,  of  course.  /  hadn't  at  her 
age — nineteen  or  twenty,  if  I  am  any  guesser.  What  she  will 
be  at  thirty,  if  she  don't  go  off!  That  little  Greek  head,  and 
all  those  waves  of  rusty-coloured  hair.  Quite  wonderful! 
And  her  hands  and  feet  and  skin — marvellous!  And  that 
small-boned  slenderness  of  build  that  is  so  perfectly  enchant- 
ing. Paquin  would  shriek  to  dress  her.  And  " — her  jangling 
laugh  rang  out,  waking  echoes  from  hollow  places — "it  looks 
— do  you  know? — it  looks  as  though  he  would  get  the  chance." 

"Why  does  it?"  demanded  Saxham,  turning  his  square  face 
full  upon  Lady  Hannah,  and  lowering  his  heavy  brows. 

"  Mercy  upon  us,  Doctor,  do  you  want  me  to  be  definite 
and  literal?  Can't  you  do  as  I  do,  and  use  your  eyes?  "  Her 
own  round,  sparkling  black  ones  were  full  of  provocation. 
"  They  look  as  if  they  could  see  rather  farther  into  a  mud 
wall  than  most  people's.  Please  get  me  one  of  those  peaches. 
No,  I  won't  have  a  plate.  I  am  beginning  to  find  out  that 
most  of  the  things  Society  regards  as  indispensable  can  be  done 
without.  I'm  beginning  to  revert  to  Primitive  Simplicity. 
Isn't  there  a  prehistoric  flair  about  most  of  us?  If  there  isn't, 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  345 

there  ought  to  be.  For  what  are  we  from  week-end  to  week- 
end but  grimy  male  and  female  Troglodytes,  eating  minced 
horse  and  fried  locusts  in  underground  burrows  by  the  light  of 
paraffin  lamps!  Another  peach.  .  .  .  Thanks.  Can't  you  see 
those  dear  things,  the  Sisters,  gathering  them  by  lantern-light, 
and  being  shelled  by  Bronnckers'  German  gunners.  Wretches! 
Beasts!  Horrors!" 

"  I  hope,"  said  Saxham,  in  rather  heavy  irony,  "  that  you 
acquainted  them  with  your  opinion  of  them  while  you  had  the 
opportunity?" 

She  gaily  flipped  him  with  the  loose  tan  gloves  she  had 
drawn  off.  Her  bangles  clashed,  and  her  eyes  snapped  sparks 
under  the  brim  of  her  hat,  whose  feathers  nodded  and  swished, 
and  her-  jangling  laugh  brought  more  echoes  from  the  high 
banks. 

"  Ha,  ha,  ha!  Do  you  know,  Doctor,  I  call  that  thoroughly 
nasty — to  mind  me,  on  such  a  fine  day  too,  of  the  Frightful 
Fiasco.  When  my  own  husband  hasn't  ventured  to  breathe 
a  hint  even.  .  .  .  Do  you  know,  when  he  rode  out  to  meet 
me  with  the  Escort,  all  he  said  was,  'Hullo,  old  lady;  is 
that  you?  The  Chief  wants  to  know  if  you'll  peck  with  us 
at  six,  and  I  told  him  I  thought  you'd  be  agreeable.'  And 

when  we  met,  he Why  do  handkerchiefs  invariably  hide 

when  people  want  to  sneeze  behind  them  ?  "  She  found  the 
ridiculous  little  square  of  filmy  embroidered  cambric,  and  blew 
her  thin  little  nose,  and  furtively  whisked  away  a  tear-drop. 
"  He  never  moved  a  muscle;  just  shook  hands  in  his  kind, 
hearty  way,  and  began  to  tell  the  news  of  the  town.  .  .  . 
Never,  by  look  or  word  or  sign,  helped  to  rub  in  what  a 
beetle-headed  idiot  I'd  been."  She  gulped.  "  I  could  have 
put  my  head  down  on  the  tablecloth  and  cried  gallons  " — she 
blew  her  nose  again — "  knowing  I'd  lost  him  a  rook  at  least. 
For,  of  course,  that  flabby  Slabbert  creature  counted  for  some- 
thing in  the  game,  or  Bronnckers  wouldn't  have  wanted  him. 
And  Captain — my  Captain!  .  .  ."  She  threw  a  sparkling  eye- 
dart  tipped  with  remorseful  brine  at  the  spare,  soldierly  figure 
and  the  lean,  purposeful  face.  "  If  you  were  to  say  to  me 
this  minute,  '  Hannah  Wrynche,  jump  off  the  end  of  that  high 
rock-bluff  there,  down  on  those  uncommonly  nasty-looking 
stones  below,'  I  vow  I'd  do  it ! " 

Saxham's  blue  eyes  were  kind.  Here  was  a  fellow  hero- 
worshipper. 

"  I  believe  you  would  do  it,  and — that  he  believes  it  too." 


546  '  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

She  tapped  him  on  the  sleeve  with  the  long  cherry-wood 
stick  of  her  white  green-lined  umbrella. 

"  Thank  you.  But  don't  get  to  making  a  habit  of  saying 
charming  things,  because  the  role  of  Bruin  suits  you.  Your 
Society  women-patients  used  to  enjoy  being  bullied,  tremen- 
dously, I  remember.  We're  made  like  that."  Her  shrill  laugh 
came  again.  "  To  sauter  a  pieds  joints  on  people  who  are 
used  to  being  deferred  to,  or  made  much  of,  is  the  best  way 
to  command  their  cordial  gratitude  and  sincere  esteem,  isn't 
it?  Don't  all  you  successful  professional  men  know  that?" 

"  The  days  of  my  professional  successes  are  past  and  gone," 
said  Saxham,  "  and  my  very  name  must  be  strange  in  the  ears 
of  the  men  and  women  who  were  my  patients.  It  is  natural 
and  reasonable  that,  when  a  man  falls  out  of  the  race,  he  should 
be  forgotten — at  least,  I  hold  it  so." 

"  You  have  a  patient  not  very  far  away  who  lauds  you  to 
the  skies."  Lady  Hannah  indicated  the  slender  pepper-and- 
salt  clad  figure  of  Julius  Fraithorn  with  the  cherry-wood 

umbrella-stick.  "You  know  his  father,  the  Bishop  of  H ? 

Such  a  dear  little  trotty  old  man,  with  the  kind  of  rosy, 
withered-apple  face  that  suggests  a  dear  little  trotty  old  woman, 
disguised  in  an  episcopal  apron  and  gaiters,  and  with  funny 
little  bits  of  white  fur  glued  on  here  and  there  for  whiskers 
and  eyebrows.  We  met  him  with  Mrs.  Fraithorn  at  the 
Hotel  Schwert  at  Appenbad  one  June.  Do  you  know  Appen- 
bad?  Views  divine:  such  miles  of  eye-flight  over  the  Lake  of 
Constance  and  the  Rhine  Valley.  To  quote  Bingo,  who  suf- 
fered hideously  from  the  whey-cure,  every  prospect  pleases,  and 
only  man  is  bile — and  woman,  too,  if  seeing  black  spots  in 
showers  like  smuts  in  a  London  fog,  only  sailing  up  instead 
of  coming  down,  means  a  disturbed  gastric  system.  I'm  not 
sure  now  that  the  Bishop  did  not  mention  your  name.  Can 
he  have  done  so,  or  am  I  hashing  things?  Do  set  my  mind 
at  rest  ?  " 

Saxham  said  with  stiffness: 

"  It  would  be  possible  that  the  Bishop  would  remember  me. 
I  operated  on  him  for  the  removal  of  the  appendix  in  1 8 — " 

"  If  you  had  taken  away  his  Ritualistic  prejudices  at  the 
same  time,  you  would  have  made  his  wife  a  happy  woman. 
Her  soul  yearns  for  incense  and  vestments,  candles,  and 
acolytes,  and  most  of  all  for  her  boy.  Well,  she  will  thank  you 
herself  for  him  one  day,  Doctor."  The  little  dry  hand,  glit- 
tering with  magnificent  rings,  touched  Saxham's  gently.  "  In 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  347 

the  meantime  let  a  woman  who  hasn't  got  a  son  say  'Thank 
you  '  for  her." 

"  You  make  too  much  of  that  affair."  Saxham  took  the 
offered  hand.  It  pressed  his  kindly,  and  the  little  lady  went 
on: 

"  You're  still  a  prophet  in  your  own  country,  you  know, 
though  it  pleases  you  to  make  yourself  out  a — a  kind  of  medi- 
cal Rip  Van  Winkle.  In  June  last  year — when  I  did  not 
guess  that  I  should  ever  know  you — I  heard  a  woman  say: 
'  If  Owen  had  been  here,  the  child  wouldn't  have  died.' 
And  the  woman  was  your  sister-in-law,  Mrs.  David  Saxham." 

Saxham's  blue  eyes  shot  her  a  steely  look.  The  wings  of 
his  mobile  nostrils  quivered  as  he  drew  quickened  breath.  He 
waited,  with  his  obstinate  under-lip  thrust  out,  for  the  rest. 
If  he  did  not  fully  grasp  the  real  and  genuine  kindliness  that 
prompted  the  little  woman,  at  least  he  did  her  the  justice  of 
not  shutting  her  up  as  an  impudent  chatterbox.  She  went 
on,  a  little  nervously: 

"  I  don't  think  I  ever  mentioned  to  you  before  that  I  had 
met  your  brother  and  his  wife.  She  is  still  a  very  attractive 
person,  but — it  is  not  the  type  to  wear  well,  and  the  boy's 
death  cut  them  both  up  terribly." 

"  There  was  a  boy — who  died  ?  " 

"  In  the  spring  of  last  year.  Of — meningitis,  I  think  his 
mother  said,  and  she  declared  over  and  over  that  if  you  had 
been  there,  you  would  have  saved  him." 

"  At  least,  I  should  have  done  my  best." 

She  had  turned  her  eyes  away  in  telling  him,  or  she  would 
have  seen  the  relief  in  his  face.  He  understood  now  why 
his  mother's  trustees  had  prompted  the  solicitors'  advertise- 
ment. He  was  his  nephew's  heir,  under  the  late  Mrs.  Sax- 
ham's  will.  Seven  thousand  in  Consols  and  Home  Rails,  and 
the  little  freehold  property  in  North  Wales,  that  brought  in, 
when  the  house  was  let,  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  a 
year,  counted  as  wealth  to  a  man  who  had  possessed  nothing. 
He  lifted  his  square  head  and  threw  back  his  heavy  shoulders 
with  the  air  of  one  from  whom  a  heavy  burden  has  been  taken. 
His  vivid  eyes  lightened,  his  heavy  brows  smoothed  out  their 
puckers,  and  the  tense  lines  about  his  lips  relaxed.  His  own 
words  came  back  to  him: 

"  The  Past  is  done  with.  Why  should  not  the  Future  be 
fair?" 

He   knew,    as   he   looked   towards   Lynette    Mildare,    who 


348  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

personified  the  Future  for  him,  and  his  mood  changed.  He 
had  loved  her  without  hope.  Now  a  faint  grey  began  to  show 
in  the  blackness  of  his  mental  horizon.  It  might  be  a  false 
dawn,  but  what  a  lightening  of  the  heavy  heart — what  a  leap 
of  the  stagnant  blood — answered  to  it!  He  was  no  longer 
penniless.  He  had  never  loved  money  or  thirsted  for  estate, 
but  the  thought  of  that  sum  of  seven  thousand  pounds  in 
Home  Securities,  and  the  house  that  stood  in  its  walled  garden 
on  the  cliffs  at  Herion,  looking  out  on  the  wild,  tumbling 
grey-white  waters  of  Nantavon  Bay,  was  dear  to  him. 

Plas  Bendigaid,  the  Holy  House,  the  Place  of  the  Blessed, 
in  the  Welsh.  It  had  been  a  Convent  once.  Its  grey,  stone- 
tiled,  steep-pitched  roof  and  solid  walls  of  massive  stone  had 
sheltered  his  mother's  infancy  and  girlhood.  Perhaps  they 
might  cover  a  lovelier  head,  and  echo  to  the  voices  of  his  wife 
and  his  children.  He  gave  sweet  fancies  the  rein,  as  Lady 
Hannah  chattered  beside  him.  Saxham  dreamed  of  that 
Future  that  might  be  fair,  even  as  he  filled  up  the  little  lady's 
pauses  with  "  Yes's  "  and  "  No's." 

Love  at  first  sight.  He  had  laughed  the  possibility  to  scorn, 
in  other  days  holding  the  passion  to  be  r,he  sober  child  of 
propinquity,  sympathy,  consonance  of  ideas,  similar  tastes,  and 
pursuits,  and  fanned  into  flame,  after  due  time  to  kindle,  by 
the  appearance  of  a  rival. 

A  rival!  He  laughed  silently,  grimly,  remembering  the 
resentful,  jealous  impulse  that  had  prompted  his  interruption 
when  the  boyish,  handsome  face  of  Beauvayse  had  leaned  so 
near  to  hers,  and  the  blush  that  dyed  her  white-rose  cheeks 
answered,  no  doubt,  to  some  hackneyed,  stereotyped,  garrison 
compliment. 

He  had  seen  them  together  since  then:  once  crossing  the 
veld  from  the  Women's  Laager  on  foot,  in  the  company  of  the 
Mother-Superior;  once  here  beside  the  river,  under  the 
chaperonage  of  all  the  Sisters;  once  in  the  Market  Square,  and 
always  the  sight  had  roused  in  him  the  same  intolerable  re- 
sentment and  gnawing  pain  that  rankled  in  him  now  as  he 
watched  them. 

What  was  Beauvayse  whispering,  so  close  to  the  delicate 
little  ear  that  nestled  under  the  red-brown  hair-waves?  Some- 
thing that  set  his  grey-green  eyes  gleaming  dangerously,  and 
lifted  the  wings  of  the  fine  nostrils  and  opened  the  boldly- 
curved  mouth  in  audacious  laughter,  under  the  short  golden 
hair?  of  the  clipped  mousta'che.  Somehow  that  laughter  stung 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  349 

Saxham.  His  muscular  hand  gripped  the  old  hunting-crop 
that  he  carried  by  habit  even  when  he  did  not  ride,  and  his 
black  brows  were  thunderous.  He  tried  to  look  away  and 
listen  to  the  little  woman  who  chattered  beside  him. 

"  Look  about  you,"  she  bade  him,  putting  up  her  tortoise- 
shell-rimmed  glass  as  though  she  were  in  a  picture-gallery  or 
at  a  theatre.  "  Wouldn't  the  ordinary  unimaginative  person 
suppose  that  Love  would  be  the  last  flower  to  blossom  in  the 
soil  of  this  battered  little  bit  of  debatable  ground?  But  we 
know  better.  Look  at  little  Miss  Wiercke,  the  German 
oculist's  daughter,  and  that  tallow-candle-locked  young  man 
who  plays  the  harmonium  at  the  Catholic  Church.  And  that 
other  pretty  girl — I  don't  know  her  name — who  used  to  keep 
the  book-registers  at  the  Public  Library.  She  is  going  to 
marry  that  young  mining-prospector — a  Cornishman,  judging 
by  his  blue  eyes  and  black  hair — do  you  happen  to  be  Cornish, 
too? — next  Sunda}r.  And  the  uncertainty  about  living  till 
then  or  any  time  after  Monday  morning  will  make  quite  a 
commonplace  wedding  into  something  tremendously  romantic. 
But  you  don't  even  pretend  to  look  when  you're  told.  Aha!  " 
she  cried ;  "I've  caught  you.  You  were  watching  another  pair 
of  lovers — the  couple  I  kept  for  the  last." 

"  Not  at  all,"  said  Saxham,  inexpressibly  wearied  by  the 
voluble  little  woman's  discourse.  Ignoring  the  conventional 
disclaimer,  Lady  Hannah  went  on: 

"  They're  in  the  early  stage — the  First  Act  of  the  dear  old 
play.  Pretty  to  watch,  isn't  it?  Though  it  makes  one  feel 
chilly  and  grown  old,  as  Browning  or  somebody  says.  Only 
the  other  day  one  was  tipping  that  boy  at  Eton,  and  he  look- 
ing such  a  Fourth  of  June  duck  as  never  you  saw,  got  up  in 
white  trousers  and  a  braided  blue  jacket,  and  a  straw  hat  with 
a  wreath  of  crimson  Banksia  roses  round  it  for  the  Procession 
of  Boats.  And  now " — she  sighed  drolly — "  he's  a  long- 
legged  Captain  of  Hussars,  with  a  lady-killing  reputation. 
Though,  in  the  present  instance,  I'm.  ready  to  back  my  opinion 
that  the  biter  is  fairly  bit.  What  regiments  of  women  will 
tear  their  hair — real  or  the  other  thing — when  Beau  becomes  a 
Benedick." 

Saxham  saw  red,  but  he  gave  no  sign.  She  turned  down 
her  little  thumb  with  a  twinkle  of  triumph. 

"  Habet!  And  I'm  not  sorry  he  has  got  it  badly.  His  hit 
motif  in  the  music-play  has  been  '  See  the  Conquering  Hero ' 
up  to  now;  one  isn't  sorry  to  see  one's  sex  avenged.  But  one 


350  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

is  sorry  for  Mary  Fraithorn's  boy."  She  indicated  the  Chap- 
lain with  a  twirl  of  her  eyeglasses.  "  She  used  to  visit  him 
with  the  Sisters  when  he  was  ill,  and,  of  course,  he  has  been 
bowled  over.  But  il  n'a  pas  un  radis,  unless  the  Bishop  comes 
round,  and  don't  you  think  that  little  Greek  head  of  hers  is 
aware  that  a  great  deal  of  money  goes  with  the  Foltlebarre 
title,  and  that  the  family  diamonds  would  suit  it  to  a  marvel  ?  " 
Saxham  said  gratingly,  and  with  a  hostile  look: 
"  Do  you  infer  that  Miss  Mildare  is  vain  and  mercenary?  " 
"  Good  mercy,  my  dear  man!  "  she  screamed ;  "  don't  pounce. 
I  infer  nothing,  except  that  Miss  Mildare  happens  to  be  a 
live  girl,  with  eyes  and  the  gift  of  charm,  and  that  the  young 
men  are  attracted  to  her  as  naturally  as  drones  to  a  honey- 
pot.  Also,  that,  if  she's  wise,  she  will  dispose  of  her  honey  to 
the  best  advantage."  Her  beady  bright  eyes  snapped  suddenly 
at  Saxham,  and  her  small  face  broke  up  into  laughter.  "  Ha, 
ha,  ha!  Why,  I  do  believe  .  .  ."  She  screamed  at  him 
triumphantly.  "  You,  too !  You've  succumbed.  She  carries 
your  scalp  at  her  pretty  waist  with  the  rest  of  'em.  How  per- 
fectly delightful ! " 

Possibly  Saxham  had  always  been  a  bear,  as  her  little  lady- 
ship had  stated,  but  the  last  five  years  had  certainly  scraped 
off  whatever  social  veneer  had  adhered  to  his  manners.  The 
power  of  facial  self-control,  the  common  tact  that  would  have 
carried  things  off  with  a  laugh  and  a  jest,  were  his  no  longer, 
if  he  had  ever  possessed  them.  He  got  upon  his  feet  and  stood 
before  the  woman  whose  six  ounces  less  of  brain-matter  had 
been  counterbalanced  by  so  large  an  allowance  of  intuition, 
dumbly  furious  with  her,  and  so  unspeakably  savage  with  him- 
self for  not  being  able  to  hide  his  anger  and  annoyance  that, 
as  he  stood  before  her  with  his  bulky  shoulders  hunched  and 
his  square,  black  head  sullenly  lowered,  and  his  eyes  blazing 
under  their  heavy  brows,  he  suggested  to  Lady  Hannah's 
nimble  wit  and  travelled  experience  the  undeniable  analogy 
between  a  chaffed  and  irate  Doctor  and  a  baited  Spanish  bull, 
goaded  by  the  stab  of  the  gaudy  paper-flagged  dart  in  his  thick 
neck,  and  bewildered  by  the  subsequent,  'explosion  of  the 
cracker.  He  only  wanted  a  tail  to  lash,  she  mentally  said,  and 
had  pigeon-holed  the  joke  for  Bingo  when  it  became  none. 

"  Do,  please,  forgive  me !  ...  What  you  must  think  of 
me!  .  .  ." 

She  began  contritely.  But  Saxham,  without  even  an  abrupt 
inclination  of  the  head,  swung  about  and  left,  her.  She  saw 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  35 1 

the  heavily-shouldered,  muscularly-built  figure  crossing  the 
drift  a  little  way  down,  stepping  from  boulder  to  boulder  with 
those  curiously  small,  neat  feet,  twirling  his  old  horn-handled 
hunting-crop  as  he  went,  with  a  decidedly  vicious  swish  of 
the  doubled  thong.  Now  he  was  knee-deep  in  the  reeds 
of  the  north  shore;  now  he  was  climbing  the  bank.  A 
black-and-white  crow  flew  up  heavily,  and  was  lost  among  the 
intertwining  branches  of  the  oaks  and  the  blue-gums,  and  a 
cloud  of  finches  and  linnets  rose  as  the  covert  of  tree-fern 
and  cactus  and  tall  grass,  knitted  with  twining  jungle-creeper, 
received  him  and  swallowed  him.  She  saw  by  the  shaking  of 
the  foliage  that  he  turned  up  the  stream,  and  then  no  more  of 
him.  Feather-headed  idiot  that  she  had  been!  Inconsiderate 
wretch!  How,  in  Heaven's  name,  after  reminding  the  man 
of  the  perfidy  of  that  underbred  passee  little  person  with  the 
passion  for  French  novels  and  morphia  tabloids,  who  had 
thrown  the  Doctor  over,  years  before,  in  favour  of  his  brother 
the  Dragoon — how  could  she  have  charged  him  with  being  a 
victim  to  the  charms  of  another  young  woman?  If  Mrs. 
David's  desertion  rankled  still,  as  no  doubt  it  did,  there  being 
no  accounting  for  masculine  taste,  he  would,  of  course,  resent 
the  accusation  almost  as  an  insult.  Men  were  such  Conserva- 
tives in  love.  And,  besides,  she  had  just  been  telling  him 
about  the  child.  She  loathed  herself  for  having  perpetrated 
such  a  blunder.  Saxham  had  murdered  politeness  by  quitting 
her  abruptly;  but  hadn't  she  deserved  the  snub?  She  deserved 
snubbing.  She  would  go,  for  the  health  of  her  soul,  and  talk 
to  dearest  Biddy,  who  always  made  you  feel  even  smaller  than 
you  had  thought  yourself  before. 

She  stood  up,  shaking  the  sand-grains  and  grass-burrs  from 
her  dress  and  the  folds  of  the  white  umbrella.  It  was  near- 
ing  six  o'clock.  The  heat  was  lessening,  and  the  turquoise 
sky  overhead  was  flecked  and  dappled  with  little  puffs  of  rosy 
cloud,  bulking  in  size  and  deepening  in  colour  to  the  west- 
ward, where  their  upper  edges  were  pure  gold.  And  the  river 
looked  like  a  stream  of  liquid  honey,  upon  which  giant  rose- 
leaves  had  been  scattered,  reflecting  the  lovely  dappling  above. 
The  Sisters  were  busily  repacking  their  baskets.  Little  Miss 
Wiercke,  with  her  lank-haired  young  organist,  sat  under  a 
bush,  gazing  in  each  other's  eyes  with  the  happy  fatuity  of 
lovers  in  the  second  stage;  the  young  lady  who  kept,  the 
registers  at  the  Free  Library  was  teaching  her  Cornish  mining- 
engineer  to  wash  up  cups  and  saucers  in  a  tin  basin — a  process 


352  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

which  resulted  in  the  entanglement  of  fingers  of  different 
sexes,  and  made  Sister  Tobias  pause  over  her  task  of  wiping 
crockery  to  shake  her  head  and  laugh. 

Little  Miss  Wiercke  was  to  lose  her  lank-haired  organist 
a  few  days  later,  the  prevalent  complaint  of  shrapnelitis  carry- 
ing him  off.  And  the  girl  who  screamed  coquettishly  as  the 
mining-engineer  amorously  squeezed  her  wet  fingers  under  the 
soapsuds  was  shortly  to  be  represented  in  the  Cornishman's 
memory  by  another  white  cross  in  the  Cemetery,  a  trunk  full 
of  pathetic  feminine  fripperies,  and  a  wedding-ring  that  had 
been  worn  barely  two  months.  But  they  did  not  know  this, 
and  they  were  happy.  We  should  never  love  or  laugh  if  we 
knew. 

Two  other  people  had  passed  along  the  path  that,  ran  by 
the  margin  of  the  sand  and  reed-patches,  and  were  lost  to 
sight.  Lady  Hannah  glanced  towards  the  Mother-Superior, 
who  was  being  gracious  to  Captain  Bingo  and  the  Chaplain, 
and  hoped  Biddy  would  not  miss  the  owner  of  the  little  Greek 
head  and  the  enchanting  willowy  figure  quite  yet. 

Nuns  were  frightfully  scrupulous  and  gimlet-eyed  where 
their  charges  were  concerned.  And  certainly,  if  young  people 
never  got  away  together  without  quil  ne  vous  en  deplaise, 
there  would  be  fewer  engagements.  And  Biddy  must  know 
that  it  was  a  Heaven-sent  chance  for  the  girl. 

The  Foltlebarres  had  sat  too  long  on  thorns  to  grumble  at 
Beau's  marrying  a  girl  without  a  dot,  who  was  not  only  lovely 
enough  to  set  Society  screaming  over  her,  but  modest  and  a 
lady.  Up  to  the  present  his  tendency  had  been  to  exalt  Beauty 
above  Breed,  and  personal  attractiveness  above  moral  im- 
maculateness. 

As  in  the  most  recent  case  of  that  taking  but  extremely 
terrible  little  person  with  the  toothy,  photographic  smile,  Miss 
Lessie  Lavigne  of  the  Jollity  Theatre,  the  affair  with  whom 
might  be  counted,  it  was  to  be  hoped,  as  the  last  furrow  of  a 
heavy  sowing  of  wild  oats.  As  this  would  be  a  match  d'egcl 
a  egal — in  point  of  education,  at  any  rate — certainly  the  Foltle- 
barres would  have  reason  to  bless  their  stars. 

Somebody  came  over  to  her  just  then,  saying: 

"  Bingo  seems  in  excellent  spirits." 

She  looked,  a  little  apprehensively,  across  to  where  the 
Mother-Superior  and  the  wistful-eyed,  pepper-and-salt-clad 
Chaplain  were  patiently  listening  to  the  recital  of  one  of 
Bingo's  stock  anecdotes. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  353 

"What  Is  he  telling  the  Reverend  Mother?"  Her  tone 
was  anxious.  "  I  do  hope  not  that  story  about  the  unwashed 
Boer  and  the  cake  of  soap !  " 

"  Don't  be  alarmed.  It's  a  recent  and  completely  harmless 
anecdote  about  the  sinner  from  Diamond  Town  who  got  in 
this  morning." 

Her  eyes  sparkled. 

"Really  .  .  .?     And  with  news  worth  having?" 

"  Mr.  Casey  might  be  disposed  to  think  so." 

"Who  is  Mr.  Casey?" 

"  That's  a  question  nobody  can  answer  satisfactorily." 

"  But  is  the  intelligence  absolutely  useless  to  anybody  who 
doesn't  happen  to  be  Mr.  Casey?"  she  insisted. 

"  Not  unless  they  happened  to  be  deeply  interested  in  Mrs. 
Casey." 

'There  is  a  Mrs.  Casey,  then?" 

"  So  says  the  man  who  travelled  two  hundred  miles  to  bring 
her  letters  and  the  message  that  she  is,  as  Mr.  Micawber 
would  put  it,  in  statu  quo" 

"  I  understand."  The  bright  black  eyes  were  compassion- 
ate. "  She  has  written  to  her  husband — she  doesn't,  know  that 
he  has  been  killed " 

"  Nor  do  we.  As  far  as  we  can  ascertain,  the  garrison  has 
never  included  a  Casey." 

"  Then  you  think " 

"  I  think " — he  glanced  aside  as  a  stentorian  bellow  of 
laughter  reached  them — "  that,  judging  by  what  I  hear,  Bingo 
has  got  to  the  soapy  story." 

She  frowned  anxiously. 

"  Bingo  ought  to  remember  that  nuns  aren't  ordinary 
women.  I  shall  have  to  go  and  gag  him."  She  took  a 
dubious  step. 

"Why?  The  Reverend  Mother  does  not  seem  at  all 
shocked,  and  Fraithorn  is  evidently  amused."  He  added,  as 
Bingo's  rapturous  enjoyment  of  his  own  anecdote  reached  the 
stamping  and  eye-mopping  stage:  "And  undoubtedly  Bingo 
is  happy." 

"  He  has  got  out  of  hand  lately.  One  can't  keep  a  husband 
in  a  proper  state  of  subjection  who  may  be  brought  home  to 
one  a  corpse  at  any  hour  of  the  day."  Her  laugh  jangled 
harshly,  and  broke  in  the  middle.  "  The  soil  of  Guelders- 
dorp  being  so  uncommonly  favourable  just  now  to  the  produc- 
tion of  weeds  of  the  widow's  description." 


354  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"  It  grows  other  things."  His  eyes  were  very  kind. 
"  Brave,  helpful,  unselfish  women,  for  instance." 

"There  is  one!" 

She  indicated  the  tall,  black-robed  figure  of  the  Mother 
with  a  quick  gesture  of  her  little  jewelled  hand. 

"  And  here  is  another."  He  touched  her  sleeve  lightly  with 
a  finger-tip. 

"  Brave.  .  .  .  Helpful."  Her  voice  was  choky.  "  Do  you 
think  I  shall  ever  forget  the  hindrance  I  have  been  to  you? 
Didn't  I  lose  you  your  Boer  spy?" 

"  Granted  you  did."  His  moustache  curved  cheerfully  at 
the  corners.  "  But  that's  Ancient  History,  and  look  what 
you  brought  back !  " 

"A  unit  of  the  despised  majority  who  is  thoroughly  con- 
vinced of  her  own  superfluousness.  Hannah  Wrynche,  with 
the  conceit  so  completely  taken  out  of  her  that  she  feels,  say, 
like  a  deflated  balloon ;  Hannah  Wrynche,  who  believed  her- 
self born  to  be  a  War  Correspondent,  and  has  come  down  to 
scribbling  gossipy  paragraphs  for  a  little  siege  newspaper 
printed  in  a  damp  cellar." 

He  laughed. 

"  Collectors  will  pay  fancy  prices  for  copies  of  that  same 
little  siege  newspaper,  at  auctions  yet  to  be." 

"I've  thought  of  that,"  she  confessed.  "But,  oh!  I  could 
make  it  so  much  more  spicy  if  you'd  only  give  me  a  freer 
hand." 

His  hazel  eyes  had  a  smile  in  them.  "  I  know  you  think 
me  an  editorial  martinet." 

"  You  blue-pencil  out  of  my  poor  paragraphs  everything 
that's  interesting." 

"  No  personalities  shall  be  published  in  a  paper  I  control." 

"  The  Reading  Public  adore  personalities  and  puerili- 
ties." 

:<  They  can  go  to  the  Daily  Whale  for  them,  then." 

"  Isn't  that  rather  a  personal  remark?" 

"  Let  me  say  that  if  you  are  occasionally  personal,  you  are 
never,  under  any  circumstances,  anything  but  clever." 

"  Thank  you.  But,  oh !  the  difference  between  what  I  am 
and  what  I  aspired  to  be !  " 

"  And,  ah !  the  difference  between  what  I  have  done  and 
what  I  meant  to  do !  "  he  said. 

Her  black  eyes  flashed.  "  You  have  never  really  felt  it. 
Achievement  with  you  has  never  hit  below  the  mark.  You, 


ONE    BRAVER    THING  355 

of  all  men  living,  are  least  fitted  to  enter  into  the  rueful  regrets- 
and  dismal  disillusions  of  a  Hannah  Wrynche." 

"  Hannah  Wrynche,  who  is  content  to  do  a  woman's  work 
and  fill  a  woman's  place;  Hannah  Wrynche,  who  has  atoned 
for  a  moment  of  ambitious — shall  I  say? — imprudence,  splen- 
didly and  nobly,  has  no  reason  to  be  rueful  or  regretful. 
Don't  shake  your  head.  Do  you  think  I  don't  know  what 
you  are  doing,  day  after  day,  to  help  and  cheer  those  poor 
fellows  at  the  Convalescent  Hospital  ?  " 

Her  eyes  were  full  of  tears.  "  You  make  too  much  of  my 
poor  efforts.  You  underestimate  the  effect  of  praise  from 
you." 

"  I  said  very  little  in  the  last  cipher  dispatch  that  got 
through  to  Colonel  Rickson  at  Malamye,  but  what  I  did  say 
was  very  much  to  the  purpose,  believe  me." 

She  gasped,  staring  at  him  with  circular  eyes  of  incredulity. 
"You've  mentioned — me — in  your  despatches.  ME?" 

"Just  so!  "  he  said,  and  left  her  groping  for  the  ridiculous, 
little  gossamer  handkerchief  to  dry  the  tears  of  pride  and 
gratitude  that  were  tumbling  down  her  cheeks. 


XLI 

"  CLANG — clang — clang!  " 

A  man  and  a  girl  came  back  out  of  Paradise  when  the 
Catholic  church-bell  rang  the  Angelus.  The  girl's  sweet 
flushed  face  had  paled  at  the  first  three  strokes.  When  the 
second  triple  clanged  out,  her  colour  came  back.  She  rose 
from  her  seat  upon  a  lichened  slab  of  granite  in  the  cool 
shadow  of  the  great  boulder,  and  bent  her  lovely  head,  Beau- 
vayse  watching  her  lips  as  they  moved,  soundlessly  repeating 
the  Angelic  Salutation : 

"  Ave  Maria,  gratia  plena;  Dominus  tecum.  Benedicta  tu 
in  mulieribus,  et  benedictus  fructus  ventris  tui,  Jesus." 

The  wonderful  simplicity  of  the  Chosen  One's  reply  fol- 
lowed, and  the  announcement  of  the  Unspeakable  Wonder. 
The  little  prayer  followed,  and  the  rapid  signing  with  the 
Cross,  and  she  dropped  her  slight  hand  from  her  bosom,  and 
turned  her  eyes  back  upon  his. 

"  You  remind  me  of  my  mother,"  he  told  her.  "  She  is 
Catholic,  you  know." 

"And   not  you?" 


356  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

"We  fellows,  my  brothers  Levestre  and  Daltham  and  my- 
self, were  brought  up  as  pillars  of  the  Established  Church." 
His  sleepy,  grey-green  eyes  twinkled,  his  white  teet.h  showed 
in  the  laugh.  "  The  girls  are  of  my  mother's  faith.  It  was 
a  family  agreement.  Are  you  quite  sure  you  have  come  down 
to  earth  again?  Because  there's  such  an  awful  lot  I  want  to 
say  to  you  that  I  don't  know  where  to  begin." 

Though  his  mouth  laughed,  his  eyes  had  wistful  shadows 
under  them.  He  had  tossed  aside  his  Service  felt  when  she 
had  taken  off  her  hat,  and  the  sunshine,  piercing  the  thick 
foliage  overhead,  dappled  the  scaly  trunks  of  the  blue-gum 
trees,  and  dripped  gold  upon  the  red-brown  head  and  the  crisp- 
waved  golden  one. 

"  I  am  here.     I  am  listening." 

She  stood  before  him  with  meekly  drooping  eyelids,  feeling 
his  ardent  gaze  like  a  palpable  weight,  under  which  her  knees 
trembled  and  her  whole  body  swayed.  The  great  boulder 
rose  upon  her  left  hand  like  a  beneficent  presence.  Delicate 
ferns  and  ice-plants  sprang  from  its  chinks  and  crannies.  The 
long  fronds  of  the  sparaxis  bowed  at  her  small,  brown-shod 
feet,  some  bearing  seed-pods,  others  rows  of  pink  bells,  or 
yellow — a  fairy  chime.  In  the  damper  hollows  iris  bloomed, 
and  the  gold  and  scarlet  sword-flowers  stood  in  martial  ranks, 
and  gaily-plumaged  finches  were  sidling  on  overhanging 
boughs,  or  dipping  and  drinking  in  the  shallows.  The  wattled 
starlings  whistled  to  each  other,  or  fought  as  starlings  will.  A 
grey  partridge  was  bathing  in  the  hot  dry  sand  between  the 
reed-beds  and  the  bank,  and  in  the  deeper  pools  the  barbel 
were  rising  at  the  flies.  There  was  no  sound  but  the  running 
water.  The  spicy  smell  of  aromatic  leaves  and  the  honeyed 
perfume  of  a  great  climbing  trumpet-flower  made  the  air 
languorous  with  sweetness. 

He  answered  her  now. 

"  You  are  here,  and  I  am  here.  And  for  me  that  means 
everything.  And  I  feel  that  I  want  nothing  more,  and,  still, 
such  a  tremendous  lot  besides." 

He  breathed  as  though  he  had  been  running,  and  his  sharply- 
cut  nostrils  quivered.  His  white  teeth  gleamed  under  the 
clipped  golden  moustache. 

Perhaps  it  made  his  charm  the  more  definite  and  irresist- 
ible that  in  these  days  of  storm,  and  stress,  and  hardship,  and 
peril,  his  handsome  face  was  never  without  its  gay,  confident 
«mile.  His  tall,  athletic  figure,  in  the  neat  workmanlike 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  357 

Service  dress  that  suited  him  so  well,  leaned  towards  her 
eagerly.  He  kept  his  clear  eyes  on  her  face,  with  the  direct 
simplicity  of  a  child's  gaze,  but  the  look  bred  in  her  a  delicious 
turn.  The  perfume  of  youth  and  health,  of  vigour  and  viril- 
ity, that  exhaled  from  him,  came  to  her  mingled  with  the  scent 
of  the  crushed  spice-leaves  and  the  perfume  of  the  waxen-belled 
heaths  and  the  breath  of  the  giant  trumpet-flower.  She  was 
turning  dizzy.  She  could  scarcely  stand. 

"  I — I  will  sit  down,"  she  murmured,  and  he  beat  the 
grasses  at  the  foot  of  the  great  boulder  and  prodded  in  the 
hot  sand  beneath  for  snakes  and  tarantulas;  and  when  she 
sank  down  with  a  faint  sigh  of  relief,  threw  himself  at  her 
feet  with  a  careless,  powerful  ease,  and  lay  there  looking  up  at 
her,  worshipping  the  golden  lights  that  gleamed  through  the 
thick  brown  eyelashes,  and  the  sweet  shadows  under  them,  and 
her  little  pointed  chin. 

The  lace-trimmed  frills  of  a  white  cambric  petticoat  peeped 
under  the  hem  of  her  dark  green  skirt;  below  there  was  a 
glimpse  of  slender,  crossed  ankles  in  brown  silk  hose,  and  the 
little  brown  shoes  laced  with  wide  silk  ties.  She  drew  off 
one  of  her  thin,  loose  tan  gloves,  and  smoothed  back  a  straying 
lock  above  her  ear,  and  flushed,  hearing  him  murmur  in  his 
caressing  voice: 

"  Take  off  the  other  glove,  too." 

She  was  well  aware  how  beautiful  her  hands  were — small, 
and  slender,  and  ivory-white,  and  exquisitely  modelled,  with 
little  babyish  nicks  at  the  wrists,  and  at  the  inner  edges  of  the 
rosy  palms,  and  gleaming  pink  nails,  of  the  true  almond  shape. 
She  thought  little  of  her  face,  though  she  knew  it  to  be  charm- 
ing; but  she  ingenuously  admired  her  hands  and  her  slender 
feet,  that  were  quite  as  pretty  without  the  silk  stockings  and 
little  brown  shoes.  He  looked  at  the  delicate  hands  she  bared 
for  him  with  ardent  longing,  and  said: 

"  How  dear  of  you  to  do  that,  because  I  asked  you !  And 
do  you  realize  that  we're  here  together  alone,  you  and  me,  for 
the  first  time?  Nobody  saw  us  steal  away  but  Sister  Cleophee, 
and  I've  a  notion  she  wouldn't  tell,  blessed  old  soul!  " 

Her  eyes  smiled. 

"You  would  not  call  the  Mother  that?" 

"  No  more  than  I  would  Queen  Victoria  or  the  Princess  of 
Wales.  And  a  snubbing  from  the  Religious  would  be  rather 
worse,  on  the  whole,  than  a  snubbing  from  the  Royalty." 

"The  Princess  never  snubbed  you?  " 


358  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"Didn't  she?  Tremendously,  once.  Do  you  want  to  heat 
about  it?  She  had  sent  away  her  brougham  while  the  giddy 
old  Dean  and  Chapter  were  showing  her  round  St.  Paul's. 
And — acting  as  Extra  Equerry — I'd  got  instructions  to  call 
her  a  conveyance,  and — being  young  and  downy,  I'd  pick 
H.R.H.  the  glossiest  growler  on  the  rank.  But  you've  been 
bred  and  born  here.  You  don't  even  know  what  a  growler  is. 
And  in  five  years'  time  there  won't  be  one  left  in  London." 

"  Perhaps  I  shall  see  London  before  the  five  years  are  over. 
And  a  growler  is  a  four-wheeled  cab.  You  see,  I'm  not  so 
ignorant " 

"  You  sweetest !  "  he  burst  out  passionately.  "  I  wish  I 
knew  all  that  you  could  teach  me !  " 

He  might  have  frightened  her  if  he  had  stretched  out  his 
arms  to  clasp  her  then.  But  he  mastered  himself  so  far.  Lying 
at  full  length  in  the  grass,  leaning  upon  his  elbow,  he  rested 
his  head  upon  his  hand,  and  drank  her  in  with  thirsty  eyes. 
Something  emanating  from  him  enveloped  her,  delicate  and  yet 
forceful,  constraining  and  urging  and  compelling  her  to 
meet  his  gaze.  And  the  perfume  of  the  great  honeyed  flower 
came  to  her  in  waves  of  sweetness,  growing  in  strength,  and 
the  monotonous  buzzing  of  the  black  honey-bees,  mingled  with 
the  drumming  of  the  crickets,  and  the  flowing  of  the  river,  and 
the  beating  of  her  heart,  and  the  rushing  of  her  blood.  She 
leaned  her  fair  head  back  against  the  great  boulder,  and  said 
in  a  voice  that  shook  a  little: 

"  Tell  me  about  snubbing." 

"  It  was  High  Art.  Three  words — and  I  knew  I'd  behaved 
like  a  bounder  of  the  worst — I  had  to  go  back  and  get  the  other 
cab,  with  a  broken  front  window  and  a  cabby.  .  .  ."  He 
chuckled.  "  I've  met  red  noses  enough,  but  you  could  have 
'seen  that  chap's  glowing  through  the  thickest  fog  that  ever 
iblanketed  Ludgate  Hill  and  wrapped  the  Strand  in  greasy 
'mystery.  Don't  move,  please.  .  .  .  There's  a  ray  of  sunshine 
touching  your  head  that  makes  your  hair  look  the  colour  of  a 
chestnut  when  the  prickly  green  hull  first  cracks  to  let  it  out. 
Or  .  .  .  there's  a  rose  grow?  on  the  pergola  at  home  at  Harts- 
bank  Chase,  with  a  coppery  sheen  on  the  young  leaves.  .  .  . 
I  wondered  why  I  kept  thinking  of  it  as  I  looked  at  you.  But 
I  know  now.  And  your  skin  is  creamy  white  like  the  flower. 
Oh,  if  I  could  only  gather  the  girl-rose  and  carry  it  home  to 
the  others ! " 

She  was  pink  as  the  loveliest  La  France  now. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  359 

"You  ought  not  to  talk  to  me  in  that  way." 

"  Don't  I  know  it  ?  "  Beauvayse  groaned  out.  He  turned 
over  upon  his  face  in  the  grass,  and  lay  quite  still.  A  shudder- 
ing sigh  heaved  the  strong  young  shoulders  from  time  to  time, 
and  his  hands  clenched  and  tore  at  the  grasses.  "  Don't  I  know 
it?  Lynette,  Lynette!" 

She  longed  to  touch  the  close-cropped  golden  head.  Unseen 
by  him,  she  stretched  out  a  hand  timidly  and  drew  it  back 
again,  unsatisfied. 

"Lynette,  Lynette!  I'm  paying  at  this  moment  for  every 
rotten  act  of  headlong  folly  I've  ever  committed  in  my  life, 
and  you're  making  me !  "  He  caught  at  a  fold  of  her  skirt 
and  hid  his  face  in  it,  kissing  it  again  and  again.  It  was  one 
of  the  caresses  she  had  been  used  herself  to  offer  where  she 
most  loved.  To  find  yourself  being  worshipped  instead  of  wor- 
shipping is  an  experience.  She  touched  the  golden  head  now, 
as  the  Mother  had  often  touched  her  own.  He  caught  the 
hand. 

"  No,  no !  "  She  grew  deadly  pale,  and  shivered.  "  Please 
let  me  go.  I — I  did  not " 

She  tried  to  release  the  hand.  He  raised  himself,  and  she 
started  at  the  warm,  quivering  pressure  of  his  beautiful  mouth, 
scarcely  shaded  by  the  young,  wheat-golden  moustache,  upon 
her  cool,  sweet  flesh.  She  snatched  her  hand  away  with  a  faint 
cry,  and  sprang  to  her  feet,  and  her  cheeks  blazed  anew  as  she 
turned  to  go. 

"  You  want  to  leave  me  ?  You  would  punish  me  like  that — 
just  for  a  kissed  hand  ?  " 

He  barred  her  way,  taller  than  herself,  though  he  stood  upon 
the  sloping  lower  level.  She  had  learned  always  to  be  true  in 
thought  and  speech. 

"  I — don't — like  to  be  touched."  She  said  it  without  look- 
ing at  him. 

"  You  put  your  hand  upon  my  head.  Why  did  you  do  it  if 
you  hate  me  so  ?  " 

"  I  don't  hate  you." 

"  I  love  you.  My  rose,  my  dove,  my  star,  my  joy!  Queen 
of  all  the  girls  that  ever  I  saw  or  dreamed  of,  say  that  you 
could  love  me  back  again !  " 

"  I — must  not." 

Her  bosom  heaved.  He  could  see  the  delicate  white  throat 
vibrating  with  the  tumultuous  beating  of  her  heart. 

"  Why  not  ?     Nobody  has  told  you    anything   against   me  ? 


360  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

Nobody  has  said  to  you  that  I  have  no  right  to  love  you  ?  "  he 
demanded. 

"  No." 

"  Look  at  me." 

The  golden  hazel,  brown-lashed  eyes  she  shyly  turned  to  his 
were  full  of  exquisite,  melting  tenderness.  Her  lips  parted  to 
speak,  and  closed  again.  He  leaned  towards  her — hung  over 
her,  his  own  lips  irresistibly  attracted  to  those  sweetest 
ones.  .  .  . 

"  Lord  Beauvayse "  she  began,  and  stopped. 

He  begged: 

"  Please,  not  the  duffing  title,  but  '  Beauvayse '  only.  Tell 
me  you  love  me.  Tell  me  that  you'll  wait  until  I'm  able  to 
come  to  you  and  say:  '  My  beloved,  the  way's  clear.  Be  my 
wife  to-morrow ! ' ' 

His  tone  was  masterful.  His  ardent  eyes  thrilled  her.  She 
murmured : 

"  Beauvayse  ...   !  " 

She  swayed  to  him,  as  a  young  palm  sways  before  a  breeze, 
and  he  caught  her  in  his  strenuous  young  embrace,  and  held 
her  firmly  against  him.  Her  old  terrors  wakened,  and  dread- 
ful, unforgettable  things  stirred  in  the  darkness,  where  they 
had  lain  hidden,  and  lifted  hydra-heads.  She  cried  out  wildly, 
and  strove  to  thrust  him  from  her,  but  he  held  her  close.  There 
was  a  shaking  among  the  tangled  growths  of  bush  and  cactus 
high  up  on  the  opposite  bank,  and  Lynette  realized  that  Beau- 
vayse's  arms  no  longer  held  her.  She  leaned  back  against  the 
boulder,  panting  and  white,  and  saw  Beauvayse's  revolver 
glitter  in  his  steady  hand,  as  something  came  crashing  down 
through  the  tangled  jungle  upon  the  edge  of  the  farther  shore, 
and  a  heavily-built  man  in  khaki  pushed  through  the  shoulder- 
high  growth  of  reeds,  and  leaped  upon  a  rock  that  had  a  swirl 
of  water  around  it.  It  was  Saxharru 

"Miss  Mildare!"  cried  the  strong,  vibrating  voice. 

She  faltered: 

"  It— it  is  Dr.  Saxham." 

"  And  what  the  devil  does  Dr.  Saxham  want?  "  was  written 
in  Beauvayse's  angry  face.  But  he  called  out  as  he  lowered 
his  revolver-hand: 

"You've  had  rather  an  escape  of  getting  shot,  Saxham,  do 
you  know?  You  might  have  been  a  Boer  or  a  rhinoceros. 
Better  be  more  careful  next  time,  if  you're  anxious  to  avert 
accidents." 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  361 

Saxham  was  a  little  like  the  buffalo  as  he  lowered  his  head 
and  surveyed  the  alert,  virile  young  figure  and  the  insolent, 
high-bred  face  from  under  ominously  scowling  brows.  He 
made  no  answer;  only  laid  one  finger  upon  the  butt  of  his  own 
revolver,  and  the  slight  action  fanned  Beauvayse's  annoyance 
and  resentment  to  a  white-heat,  as  perhaps  Saxham  had  in- 
tended. He  sprang  upon  another  boulder  that  was  in  the  mid 
swirl  of  the  current,  and  spoke  again. 

"  Miss  Mildare,  I  was  walking  on  one  of  the  native  paths 
that  have  been  made  in  the  bush  there " — he  indicated  the 
bank  behind  him — "  when  I  heard  you  cry  for  help.  I  am 
here,  at  your  service,  to  offer  you  any  help  or  protection  that 
is  in  my  power." 

Lynette  looked  at  him  vaguely.  Beauvayse,  crimson  to  the 
crisp  waves  upon  his  forehead  and  the  white  collar-line  above 
the  edge  of  his  jacket,  answered  for  her. 

"Miss  Mildare  does  not  require  any  help  or  protection  other 
than  what  I  am  privileged  to  place  at  her  disposal.  You  had 
better  go  on  with  your  walk,  Doctor.  You  know  the  old  adage 
about  two  being  company?  " 

He  laughed,  but  his  voice  had  quivered  with  fury,  and  the 
hand  that  held  the  revolver  shook  too.  And  his  eyes  seemed 
colourless  as  water  against  the  furious  crimson  of  his  face. 
Still  ignoring  him,  Saxham  said,  his  square,  pale  face  turned 
full  upon  Lynette,  and  his  vivid  blue  eyes  constraining  her: 

"  Miss  Mildare,  I  am  at  your  commands.  Tell  me  to  cross 
the  river  and  take  you  back  to  the  ladies  of  the  Convent,  or 
order  me  to  continue  my  walk.  In  which  case  I  shall  under- 
stand that  the  familiarities  of  Lord  Beauvayse  are  not  unwel- 
come to  you." 

"  By  God  .  .  .  !     You '» 

Beauvayse  choked,  then  suddenly  remembered  where  and 
how  to  strike.  But  he  waited,  and  Saxham  waited,  and  still 
she  did  not  speak. 

"  Am  I  to  go  or  stay?    Kindly  answer,  Miss  Mildare!  " 

Beauvayse's  eyes  were  on  her.  He  said  to  her  below  his 
breath : 

"Tell  him  to  go!" 

She  stammered : 

"  Th — thank  you.     But — I — I — had  rather  you  went  on." 

Beauvayse  saw  his  opportunity,  and  added,  with  an  intoler- 
able smile: 

"  My  '  familiarities,'  as  you  are  pleased  to  term  them,  being 


362  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

more  acceptable  to  a  lady  than  the  attentions  of  the  Dop 
Doctor." 

Saxham  started  as  though  an  adder  had  flashed  Its  fangs 
through  his  boot.  A  rush  of  savage  blood  darkened  his  face; 
his  hand  quivered  near  the  butt  of  his  revolver,  and  his  eyes 
blazed  murder.  But  with  a  frightful  effort  he  controlled  him- 
self, lifted  his  hat  slightly  to  Lynette,  turned  and  leaped  back 
to  the  stone  he  had  quitted,  strode  through  the  reed-beds,  and 
plunged  back  into  the  tangled  boscage.  That  he  did  not  con- 
tinue his  walk,  but  turned  back  towards  the  town,  was  plain, 
for  his  retreat  could  be  traced  by  the  shaking  of  the  thick  bush 
and  the  high  grasses  through  which  he  forced  his  way.  It  did 
him  good  to  battle  even  with  these  vegetable  forces,  and  the 
hooked  thorns  that,  tore  his  clothes  and  rent  his  flesh  left  noth- 
ing like  the  traces  that  those  few  words  of  dismissal,  spoken 
by  a  girl's  voice,  and  the  hateful  taunt  that  had  followed,  had 
left  upon  his  heart. 

It  was  over.  Over — over,  the  brief,  sweet  season  of  hope. 
Nothing  was  left  now  but  his  loyalty  to  the  friend  who  be- 
lieved in  him.  If  that  man  had  not  stood  between  Saxham  and 
his  despair,  Gueldersdorp  would  have  got  back  her  Dop  Doc- 
tor that  night.  For  the  Hospital  stores  included  a  cherished 
case  or  two  of  Martell  and  Kinahan,  and  all  these  things  were 
under  Saxham's  hand. 

The  heavy  footsteps  crashed  out  of  hearing.  The  startled 
finches  settled  down  again,  except  at  that  point,  high  up  OH  the 
opposite  bank,  to  which  Beauvayse's  attention  had  first  been 
directed.  There  the  little  birds  hovered  like  a  cloud  of  butter- 
flies, but,  practised  scout  as  Beauvayse  was,  he  paid  no  heed 
to  their  distress.  She  had  declared  for  him.  The  Doctor's 
discomfiture  enhanced  his  triumph.  Gad!  how  like  an  angry 
rhino  the  fellow  was !  The  sort  of  beast  who  would  put  down 
his  head  and  charge  at  a  stone  wall  as  confidently  as  at  a  mud 
one.  It  was  a  confounded  nuisance  that  he  had  seen  what  he 
had  seen.  But  a  man  who  had  eventually  cut  so  poor  a  figure, 
had  been  snubbed  so  thoroughly  and  completely,  might  prefer 
to  hold  his  tongue.  And  if  he  did  not,  here  in  Gueldersdorp, 
•while  no  letters  got  through,  while  no  news  filtered  in  from 
the  big  humming  world  outside,  it  would  be  possible  to  carry 
things  bravely  off  for  a  long  time.  He  had  told  Bingo,  to  be 
sure,  about — about  Lessie.  But  Bingo,  though  he  might  blus- 
ter and  barge  about  dishonourable  conduct,  would  never  give 
away  a  man  who  had  trusted  him.  To  be  sure,  it  was  not  quite 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  363 

fair,  not  altogether  square;  it  was  not  playing  the  game  as  it 
should  be  played,  to  gain  her  promise  as  a  free  man.  Should 
he  make  a  clean  breast  of  it,  and  tell  her  the  whole  wretched 
story  now? 

Perhaps  he  might  if  she  had  not  been  standing,  a  slender 
green-and-white,  nymph-like  figure,  against  the  background  of 
sun-hot,  shadow-flecked,  lichened  stone,  looking  at  him.  The 
rosy  light  bathed  her  in  its  radiance.  And  as  she  looked,  it 
seemed  to  him  that  something  was  dawning  in  that  face  of  hers. 
He  watched  it,  breathless  with  the  realization  of  his  dreams, 
his  hopes,  his  desires.  The  prize  was  his.  Every  other  baser 
memory  was  drowning  within  him.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
purity,  as  he  bathed  in  it,  washed  him  clean  of  stain.  He  for- 
got everything  but.  the  secret  that  those  sweet  eyes  told  at  last. 

"  My  beloved !  I'm  not  good  enough  to  tie  your  blessed 
little  shoes,  and  yet  no  other  man  shall  ever  have  you,  hold 
you,  call  you  his  own.  .  .  .  Lynette,  Lynette!  Dear  one, 
isn't  there  a  single  kiss?  And  I  might  get  shot  to-morrow." 

It  was  characteristic  of  him  that  his  brave,  gay  mouth  should 
laugh  even  in  the  utterance  of  the  appeal  that  melted  her. 
She  gave  a  little  sob,  and  raised  her  sweet  face  to  his,  flushing 
loveliest  rosy  red.  She  lifted  her  slender  arms  and  laid  them 
about  his  strong  young  throat,  and  kissed  him  very  quietly  and 
purely.  He  had  meant  to  snatch  her  to  his  leaping  heart  and 
cover  her  with  eager,  passionate  caresses.  But  the  strong 
impulse  was  quelled.  He  said,  almost  with  a  sob: 

"  Is  this  your  promise  ?  Does  this  mean  that  you  belong 
to  me?" 

Her  breath  caressed  his  cheek  as  she  whispered: 

"  Yes." 

He  was  thrilled  and  intoxicated  and  tortured  at  once  to 
know  himself  her  chosen.  Ah!  why  was  he  not  free?  Why 
had  Chance  and  Luck  and  Fate  forced  him  to  play  a  part  like 
this? 

"  I  wish  to  Heaven  we  had  met  a  year  ago !  "  he  broke  out 
impulsively.  "  Six  years  ago — only  you'd  have  been  a  mere 
kid — too  young  to  understand  what  Love  means.  .  .  .  Why, 
Lynette  darling!  what  is  the  matter?  What  have  I  said  that 
hurt?" 

Her  arms  had  fallen  from  about  his  neck.  She  shrank  away 
from  him.  He  drew  back,  shocked  into  silence  by  the  sudden, 
dreadful  change  in  her.  Her  eyes,  curiously  dulled  and  faded, 
looked  at  Beauvayse  as  though  they  saw  not  him,  but  another 


364  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

man,  through  him  and  behind  him.  Her  face  was  peaked  and 
pinched;  her  supple,  youthful  figure  contracted  and  bent  like 
that  of  a  woman  withered  by  some  wasting  sickness,  her  dainty 
garments  seemed  to  lose  their  colouring  and  their  freshness, 
and  hang  on  her,  by  some  strange  illusion  wrought  by  the 
working  of  her  mind  upon  his,  like  sordid  rags.  Against  the 
summer  riot  of  life  and  colour  over  and  under  and  about  her, 
she  looked  like  some  slender  sapling  ringed  and  blighted  and 
ruined  by  the  inexorable  worm.  For  she  was  remembering 
the  tavern  on  the  veld.  She  was  recalling  what  had  been — 
realizing  what  must  henceforth  be,  in  its  fullest  meaning.  She 
shuddered,  and  her  half-open  mouth  drew  in  the  air  in  gasps, 
and  the  blankness  of  her  stare  appalled  him.  He  called  in 
alarm : 

"  Lynette  dearest !  what  is  the  matter  ?  Why  do  you  look 
at  me  like  that  ?  Lynette !  " 

She  did  not  answer.  She  shook  like  a  leaf  in  the  wind,  and 
stared  through  him  and  beyond  him  into  the  Past.  That  was 
all.  There  was  a  rustling  of  leaves  and  branches  higher  on 
the  bank,  and  the  sound  of  thick  woollen  draperies  trailing 
through  grass.  The  bush  on  the  edge  of  the  cleared  space  that 
was  about  the  great  boulder  was  parted  by  a  white,  strong  hand 
and  a  black-sleeved  arm,  and  the  Mother-Superior  moved  out 
into  the  open,  and  came  down  with  those  long,  swift  steps  of 
hers  to  where  they  were.  Her  eyes,  sweeping  past  Beauvayse, 
fastened  on  the  drooping,  stricken  figure  of  the  girl,  read  the 
altered  face,  and  then  she  turned  them  on  the  boy,  and  they 
were  stern  as  those  of  some  avenging  Angel,  and  her  white 
coif,  laundried  to  snowy  immaculateness  by  the  capable  hands 
of  Sister  Tobias,  framed  a  face  as  white. 

"What  is  the  reason  of — this?  What  has  passed  between 
you  to  account,  for  it?  Has  your  mother's  son  no  sense  of 
honour,  sir  ?  " 

Tne  icy  tone  of  contempt  stung  him  to  risk  the  leap.  He 
drew  himself  to  his  splendid  height,  and  answered,  his  brave 
young  eyes  boldly  meeting  the  stern  eyes  that  questioned  him: 

"  Ma'am,  I  am  sorry  that  you  should  think  me  capable  of 
dishonourable  conduct.  The  fact  is,  that  I  have  just  asked 
Miss  Mildare  to  be  my  wife.  And  she  consents." 

A  spasm  passed  over  the  pale  face.  So  easily  they  leave 
us  whom  we  have  reared  and  tended,  when  the  strange  hand 
beckons  and  the  new  voice  calls.  But  the  Mother-Superior 
was  not  a  woman  to  betray  emotion.  She  drew  her  black  nun's 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  365 

robe  over  the  pierced  mother-heart,  and  said   calmly,    holding 
out  her  hand  to  him: 

"  You  will  forgive  me  if  I  was  unjust,  knowing  that  she  is 
dear  to  me.  And  now  I  shall  ask  you  to  leave  us.  Please 
tell  the  Sisters  " — from  habit  she  glanced  at  her  worn  gold 
watch — "we  shall  join  them  in  ten  minutes'  time." 

He  bowed,  and  lifted  his  smasher  hat  from  the  grass,  and 
took  up  the  Lee-Metford  carbine  he  had  been  carrying  and 
had  laid  aside,  and  went  to  Lynette  and  took  her  passive  hand, 
and  bent  over  it  and  kissed  it.  It  dropped  by  her  side  lifelessly 
when  he  released  it.  Her  face  was  a  mack  void  of  life.  He 
looked  towards  the  Mother  in  distress.  Her  white  hand  impe- 
riously motioned  him  away.  He  expostulated: 

"  Is  it  safe  for  two  ladies,  ma'am,  so  far  from  the  town, 
without  protection?  Natives  or  white  loafers  may  be  hanging 
about." 

"  If  you  desire  it,  you  can  remain  within  hearing  of  a  call. 
But  go  now." 

He  went,  lightly  striding  down  the  sandy  path  between  the 
reed-beds  on  the  foreshore.  She  watched  the  tall,  athletic 
figure  until  it  swung  round  a  bend  and  was  lost  to  sight. 

Then  she  went  to  the  girl  and  touched  her.  And  at  the 
touch  Lynette  dropped  as  though  she  had  been  shot,  and  lay 
among  the  trodden  grasses  and  the  flaunting  cowslips  face 
downwards.  A  low,  incessant  moaning  came  from  the  muffled 
mouth.  Her  hands  were  knotted  in  her  hair.  She  writhed 
like  a  crushed  snake,  and  all  of  her  slender  neck  and  face  that 
could  be  seen  and  the  little  ears  that  her  clutching,  twining 
fingers  sometimes  bared  and  sometimes  covered  were  all  burn- 
ing, shameful  red. 

"Lynette!  My  dear  one!"  The  Mother,  wrung  and  torn* 
with  a  very  agony  of  tenderness  and  pity,  knelt  beside  her,  and 
began  with  gentle  strength  to  untwine  those  clutching  hands 
from  the  girl's  hair.  She  prisoned  both  in  one  of  hers,  and 
passed  the  other  arm  beneath  the  slender  rigid  body,  and 
lifted  it  up  and  held  it  in  her  strong  embrace,  silent  until  a 
moan,  more  articulate  than  the  rest,  voiced: 

"Mother!" 

"  It  is  Mother.     She  holds  you ;  she  will  not  let  you  go." 

The  head  lay  helplessly  upon  her  bosom.  She  felt  the  rigor 
lessen.  The  moaning  ceased,  and  the  tortured  heart  began  to 
leap  and  strain  against  her  own,  as  though  some  invisible  hand 
lashed  it  with  an  unseen  thojig. 


366  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

There  were  no  tears.  Only  those  moans  and  the  leaping  of 
the  heart  that  shook  the  whole  body.  And  it  seemed  to  the 
Mother  that  her  own  heart  wept  tears  of  blood.  The  hour 
had  come  at  last,  as  always  she  had  known  it  would.  The 
love  of  a  man  had  wakened  the  woman  in  Lynette.  She  knew 
now  the  full  value  of  the  lost  heritage,  and  realized  the  glory 
of  the  jewel  that  had  been  snatched  by  the  brutal  hand  of  a 
thief.  Ah,  Lord !  the  pity  of  it ! 

The  pity  of  it!  She,  the  stainless  one,  could  have  stripped 
off  her  own  white  robe  of  virgin  purity,  had  it  been  possible, 
to  clothe  the  despoiled  young  shoulders  of  Richard's  daughter, 
cowering  prostrate  under  her  burden  of  guiltless  shame, 
crushed  by  the  terrible  knowledge  that  ruined  innocence  must 
always  pay  the  penalty,  whether  the  destroyer  is  punished  or 
goes  free. 

The  penalty!  Suppose  at  the  price  of  a  lie  from  lips  that 
had  never  lied  yet  it  could  be  evaded?  The  Mother's  face 
contracted  with  a  spasm  of  mental  pain.  A  dull  flush  mounted 
to  her  temples,  and  died  out  in  olive  paleness;  her  lips  folded 
closely,  and  her  black  brows  frowned,  over  the  sombre  grey 
fires  burning  in  their  hollow  caves.  She  rebuked  a  sinner  at 
that  moment,  and  the  culprit  was  herself. 

She,  the  just  mistress  and  wise  ruler  of  so  many  Sisters  in 
the  religious  profession;  she,  so  slow  to  judge  and  condemn 
others,  was  unsparing  in  austerity  towards  herself.  She  had 
always  recognized  her  greatest  weakness  in  her  great  love  for 
this  daughter  that  might  have  been  her  own  if  Richard  Mil- 
dare  had  not  played  traitor.  She  had  never  once  yielded  to 
the  clinging  of  those  slight  hands  about  her  heart,  but  she  had 
extracted  forfeit  from  herself,  and  rigorously.  So  much  for 
excess  of  partiality,  so  much  for  over-consideration,  so  much 
for  lack  of  faith  in  over-anxiety,  so  much  more  of  late  for  the 
keen  mother-jealousy  that  had  quickened  in  her  to  anguish  at 
the  thought  that  another  would  one  day  usurp  her  undivided 
throne,  and  claim  and  take  the  lion's  share  of  the  love  that  had 
been  all  hers.  Her  spiritual  director  was  far  too  lenient,  in 
her  opinion.  She  was  all  the  more  exacting  towards  herself. 
What  right  had  a  nun  to  be  so  bound  by  an  earthly  tie?  It 
was  defrauding  her  Saviour  and  her  Spouse  to  love  with  such 
excess  of  material  emotion  the  child  He  had  given.  Yet  she 
loved  on. 

She  reviewed  all  her  shortcomings,  even  while  the  head  lay 
helplessly  against  her,  and  the  scalding  tears  that  had  at  last 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  367 

began  to  gush  from  those  shut,  quivering  eyelids  wetted  her 
breast.  She  had  esteemed  and  valued  perfect  candour  above 
all  things.  And  yet  of  what  concealments  had  she  not  been 
guilty  in  the  shielding  of  this  dearest  head? 

She  had  deceived,  for  Richard's  child,  Richard's  friend,  in 
the  deft  interweaving  of  fragmentary  truths  into  a  whole 
plausible  fabric.  She  knew  that,  if  necessary,  she  would  deceive 
again,  trailing  her  wings,  fluttering  on  before,  as  the  peewit 
lures  the  footsteps  of  the  stranger  from  her  nest. 

Perhaps  you  call  her  scruples  fantastic,  her  sense  of  guilt 
morbid.  Even  the  lay  Catholic  can  with  difficulty  comprehend 
and  enter  fully  into  the  mental  constitution  of  the  Religious. 
This  was  a  nun,  to  whom  a  blur  upon  the  crystal  of  the  soul 
kept  pure,  like  the  virginal  body,  for  the  daily  reception  of  the 
Consecrated  Host,  meant  defilement,  outrage,  insult,  to  her 
Master  and  her  Lord. 

And  she  had  always  known,  it  seemed  to  her,  that  this  ter- 
rible hour  would  come.  When  the  two  young  figures  had 
moved  away  together  into  the  green  gloom  of  the  trees,  she  had 
felt  a  premonitory  chill  that  streamed  over  her  whole  body  like 
icy  water,  paralyzing  and  numbing  her  strength.  She  had 
read  their  secret  in  their  faces,  unconscious  of  her  scrutiny,  and 
watched  them  out  of  sight,  praying,  as  only  such  a  mother  can, 
that  it  might  not  be  as  she  feared.  This  was  her  beloved's 
great  hour;  she  would  not  have  stretched  out  a  finger  to  delay 
its  arriving.  She  who  had  known  Love,  and  could  not  forget. 
It  might  be  that  in  this  splendid  boy,  who  was  as  beautiful  as 
the  Greek  Alcibiades,  and  as  brave  as  the  young  Bayard,  lay 
the  answer  to  all  her  prayers  for  her  darling.  The  bridal  white 
would  not  be  a  blasphemy,  like  the  young  nun's  snowy  robe 
and  veil.  And  yet, — and  yet,  in  Lynette's  place  she  knew  that 
she  could  never  have  looked  into  the  face  of  a  rosy,  smiling, 
wedded  Future  without  seeing  under  the  myrtle  and  orange 
garland  the  leering  satyr-face  of  the  Past. 

Was  it  wise  that  another  should  be  made  to  share  that 
vision?  She  put  that  question  to  herself,  looking  with  great 
agonized,  unseeing  eyes  over  the  head  that  lay  upon  her  bosom, 
out  across  the  slowly  moving  water,  stained  with  amber  from 
the  ironstone  beds  through  which  it  wound  its  way,  tinged  with 
ruddy  crimson  from  the  sunset.  For  the  sky,  from  the  western 
horizon  to  the  zenith,  and  from  thence  to  the  serried  peaks  and 
frowning  bastions  of  purple-black  cloud  that  capped  the  north- 
ern hill-ranges,  was  all  orange-crimson  now,  and  the  moon, 


368  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

then  at  the  ending  of  her  second  quarter,  swung  like   a   pale 
lamp  of  electrum  at  the  eastward  corner  of  the  flaming  tent. 

"  Was  it  wise  ?  "  She  seemed  to  hear  her  own  voice  echoing 
back  out  of  the  past.  And  it  said : 

"  The  only  just  claim  to  your  entire  confidence  in  all  that 
concerns  your  past  life  will  rest  in  the  hands  of  the  man  who 
may  one  day  be  your  husband." 

The  perfume  of  the  great  white  trumpet-flower  came  to  her 
in  gusts  of  intensified,  sickening,  loathsome  sweetness.  She 
glanced  round  and  saw  it  on  her  right,  clasping  in  its  luxuriant 
embrace  a  slender  young  bush  that  it  was  killing.  The  thick, 
juicy  green  stems  and  succulent  green  leaves,  the  greedily  em- 
,  bracing  tendrils  and  great  fleshy-white,  hanging  flowers  re- 
volted her.  The  creeper  seemed  the  incarnation  of  Lust  batten- 
ing upon  Innocence. 

Other  like  images  crowded  thick  and  fast  upon  her.  From 
a  mossy  cranny  in  a  stone  a  giant  tarantula  leaped  upon  a  little 
lizard  that  sunned  itself,  not  thinking  Death  so  near.  A  light- 
ning-quick pounce  of  the  bleated  thing  with  the  fierce,  greedy 
eyes  and  the  monstrous,  hairy  claws,  and  the  little  reptile  van- 
ished. She  shuddered,  thinking  of  its  fate. 

The  blue  gums  and  oaks  that  fringed  the  river  gorge  and 
the  bushes  that  grew  about  were  ragged  and  torn  with  shell 
and  shrapnel-ball.  Chips  and  flinders  had  been  knocked  by 
the  same  forces  from  the  boulders  and  the  rocks.  Amongst 
the  flowers  near  her  shone  something  bright.  It  was  an  unex- 
ploded  maxim-shell,  a  pretty  little  messenger  of  Death,  girt 
with  bright  copper  bands  and  gaily  painted.  And  a  ninety-four 
pound  projectile,  exploded,  had  scattered  the  shore  with  its 
fragments,  and  doubtless  the  river-bed  was  strewn  thick  with 
others.  You  had  only  to  look  to  see  them.  Once  Lynette's 
lover  knew  everything  there  was  to  know,  the  trees  and  rocks 
and  flowers  of  the  Eden  in  which  every  daughter  of  Eve  owns 
the  right  to  walk,  if  only  once  in  a  whole  lifetime,  would  be 
marred  and  broken,  scorched  and  spoiled,  like  these. 

Purblind  that  she  had  been.  What  claim  had  any  man,  see- 
ing what  the  lives  of  men  are,  to  this  pitiful  sacrifice  of  reti- 
cence, this  rending  of  the  veil  of  merciful,  wise  secrecy  from  an 
innocent  young  head?  None.  Not  the  shadow  of  a  claim. 
She  tossed  away  her  former  scruples.  They  sailed  from  her  on 
the  faint  hot  breeze  lightly  as  thistledown.  And  now  the  tear- 
blurred  face  was  lifted  from  her  bosom,  and  the  voice,  hoarse 
and  weak  and  trembling,  appealed: 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  369 

"Mother,  you  are  not  angry?  I  never  meant  to  be  under- 
hand, or  to  hide — anything  from  you." 

"  No,"  she  said,  hiding  the  pang  it  gave  her  to  realize  how 
much  had  been  concealed  between  the  lines  that  she  had  read 
so  often.  "  You  did  not  mean  to."  The  trembling  voice 
went  on: 

"  He  never  spoke  to  me  as  though  we  were  strangers.  Never, 

from  the  first.  And  to-day,  he "  Her  heart's  throbbing 

shook  her.  The  Mother  said: 

"  He  has  told  me  what  has  passed.  He  said  that  he  had 
asked  you  to  marry  him,  and  you  had — agreed."  The  bitter- 
ness of  her  wounded  love  was  in  her  tone. 

"  I — had  forgotten,"  she  panted,  "  that,  until  one  little  care- 
less thing  he  said  brought  it  all  back  to  me  in  such  a  flood. 

It  was  like  drowning.  Then  you  came,  and — and "  The 

quavering  pitiful  voice  rose  to  a  cry:  "  Mother,  must  I  tell 
him  everything?"  She  cowered  down  in  the  enfolding  arms. 
"  Mother,  Mother,  must  I  tell  him  ?  " 

A  great  wave  of  pity  surged  out  from  the  deep  mother-heart 
that  throbbed  against  her.  The  deep,  soft-swelling  voice 
answered  with  one  word: 

"  No." 

Amazement  sat  on  the  uplifted,  woebegone  face  of  the  girl. 
The  sorrowful  eyes  questioned  the  Mother's  incredulously. 

"  You  mean  that  you " 

She  folded  the  slight  figure  to  her.  Her  sorrowful  eyes, 
under  their  great  jetty  arches,  looked  out  like  stars  through  a 
night  of  storm.  Her  greyish  pallor  seemed  a  thin  veil  of  ashes 
covering  incandescent  furnace-fires.  She  rose  up,  lifting  the 
slender  figure.  She  said,  looking  calmly  in  the  face: 

"  I  mean  that  you  are  not  to  tell  him.  Upon  your  obedience 
to  me  I  charge  you  not  to  tell  him.  Upon  your  love  for  me  I 
command  you — never  to  tell  him.  Kiss  me,  and  dry  these  dear 
eyes.  Put  up  your  hair;  a  coil  is  loosened.  He  is  waiting  for 
us.  Come." 

XLII 

THE  tall,  soldierly  young  figure  was  standing  motionless  and 
stiff,  as  though  on  guard  on  the  river-shore  beyond  the  bend. 
Whatever  apprehensions,  whatever  regrets,  whatever  fears  may 
have  warred  within  him,  whatever  consciousness  may  have  been 
his  of  having  taken  an  irrevocable  step,  bound  to  bring  dis- 


370  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

grace  and  reproach,  sorrow,  and  repentance  upon  the  innocent 
as  upon  the  guilty,  he  showed  no  sign  as  he  came  to  meet  them, 
and  lifted  the  Service  felt  from  his  golden  head,  and  held  out 
an  eager  hand  for  Lynette's.  She  gave  it  shyly,  and  with  the 
thrill  of  contact  Beauvayse's  last  scruple  fled.  He  turned  his 
beautiful,  flushed  face  and  shining  eyes  upon  the  Mother,  and 
asked  with  grave  simplicity: 

"  Ma'am,  is  not  this  mine?  " 

"  First  tell  me,  do  you  know  that  there  is  nothing  in  it?  " 

Her  stern  eyes  searched  his.  He  laughed  and  said,  as  he 
kissed  the  slender  hand : 

"  It  holds  everything  for  me." 

"  My  daughter,  do  you  give  it  him  ?  "  The  voice  was  solemn 
and  very  sweet.  Lynette  answered,  her  quivering  face  turned 
to  the  Mother,  but  her  eyes  for  him  alone: 

"  Mother  .   .  .  you  know." 

The  Mother  gave  Beauvayse  her  own  hand  then,  that  was 
marred  by  many  deeds  of  charity,  but  still  beautiful. 

Those  two,  linked  together  for  a  moment  in  their  mutual 
love  of  her,  made  for  Lynette  a  picture  never  to  be  forgotten. 
Then  Beauvayse  said,  in  the  boyish  tone  that  made  the  man 
irresistible : 

"  You  have  made  me  awfully  happy." 

"  Make  her  happy,"  the  Mother  answered  him,  with  a 
tremble  in  her  rich,  melancholy  organ-tones,  "  and  I  ask  no 
more." 

Her  own  heart  was  bleeding,  but  she  drew  her  black  draperies 
over  the  wound  with  a  resolute  hand.  Was  not  here  a  Heaven- 
sent answer  to  all  her  prayers  for  her  beloved?  she  asked  her- 
self, as  she  looked  at  the  girl.  Eyes  that  beamed  so,  cheeks  that 
burned  with  as  divine  a  rose,  had  looked  back  at  Lady  Biddy 
Bawne  out  of  her  toilet-glass,  upon  the  night  of  that  Ascot 
Cup-Day,  when  Richard  had  asked  her  to  be  his  wife.  But 
Richard's  eyes  had  never  worn  the  look  of  Beauvayse's.  Rich- 
ard's hand  had  never  so  trembled,  Richard's  face  had  never 
glowed  like  this.  Surely  there  was  Love,  she  told  herself,  as 
they  went,  back  to  the  place  of  trodden  grass  where  the  tea- 
making  had  been. 

The  Sisters,  basket  and  trestle-laden,  were  already  in  the  act 
of  departure.  The  black  circle  of  the  dead  fire  marked  where 
the  giant  kettle  had  sung  its  hospitable  song.  Little  Miss 
Wiercke  and  her  long-locked  organist,  the  young  lady  from  the 
Free  Library  and  her  mining-engineer,  had  strolled  away  town- 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  37i 

wards,  whispering,  and  arm-in-arm ;  the  Mayor's  wife  was  lay- 
ing the  dust  with  tears  of  joy  as  she  trudged  back  to  the 
Woman's  Laager  beside  a  husband  who  pushed  a  perambulator 
containing  a  small  boy,  who  had  waked  up  hungry  and  wanted 
supper;  the  Colonel  and  Captain  Bingo  Wrynche  had  been 
summoned  back  to  Staff  Headquarters,  and  a  pensive  little 
lady  in  navy-blue  alpaca  and  a  big  grey  hat  with  ostrich  plumes, 
who  was  sitting  on  a  tree-stump  knocking  red  ants  out  of  her 
white  umbrella,  as  those  three  figures  moved  out  of  the  shadows 
of  the  trees,  jumped  up  and  hurried  to  meet  them,  prattling: 

"  I  couldn't  go  without  saying  a  word.  .  .  .  You  have 
been  so  upset  with  people  all  the  afternoon  that  I  never  got  a 
chance  to  put  my  oar  in.  Dear  Reverend  Mother,  everything 
has  gone  off  so  well.  No  clergyman  will  ever  preach  again 
about  Providence  spreading  a  table  in  the  wilderness  without 
my  coming  back  in  memory  to  to-day.  May  we  walk  back 
together?  I  am  a  mass  of  ants,  and  mosquito-bitten  to  a  de- 
gree, but  I  don't  think  I  ever  enjoyed  myself  so  much.  No, 
Lord  Beauvayse,  the  path  is  narrow,  and  I  have  a  perfect  dread 
of  puff-adders.  Please  go  on  before  us  with  Miss  Mildare. 
No.  .  .  !  Oh,  what.  .  .  ?  You  haven't  ...  ? " 

It  was  then  that  Lady  Hannah  dropped  the  white  umbrella 
and  clapped  her  hands  for  joy.  Something  of  mastery  and 
triumph  in  the  young  man's  face,  something  in  the  pale  radi- 
ance of  the  girl's,  something  of  the  mingled  joy  and  anguish 
of  the  pierced  maternal  heart,  shining  in  the  Mother's  grey 
eyes,  had  conveyed  to  the  exultant  little  woman  that  the  plant 
that  had  thriven  upon  the  arid  soil  of  Gueldersdorp  had  opened 
a  blossom  with  a  heart  of  ruby  red. 

"  Oh,  you  dears!  you  two  beautiful  dears!  how  happy  you 
look ! "  she  crowed.  "  I  must  kiss  you  both."  She  did  it. 
"  Say  that  this  isn't  to  be  kept  secret."  She  clasped  her  tiny 
hands  with  exaggerated  entreaty.  "  For  the  sake  of  the  Guel- 
dersdorp Siege  Gazette,  and  its  seven  hundred  subscribers  all 
perishing  for  news,  tell  me  I  may  let  the  cat  out  of  the  bag  in 
my  next  Weekly  Column.  Only  say  that  people  may 
know." 

As  her  black  eyes  snapped  at  Beauvayse,  and  her  tiny  hands 
dramatically  entreated,  he  had  an  instant  of  hesitation,  palpable 
to  one  who  stood  by.  In  an  instant  he  pulled  himself  together. 

'*  The  whole  world  may  know,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned." 

"  It  is  best,"  said  the  Mother's  soft,  melodious  voice,  "  that 
our  world,  at  least,  should  know." 


372  ONE  BRAVER  THING. 

"And  when — oh,  when  Is  It  To  Be?"  begged  Lady 
Hannah. 

Confound  the  woman !  Why  could  she  not  let  well  enough 
alone?  A  sullen  anger  burned  Beauvayse  as  he  said,  and  not  in 
the  tone  of  the  ardent  lover: 

"  As  soon  as  we  can  possibly  manage  it." 

The  Mother's  voice  said,  coldly  and  clearly: 

"  I  do  not  approve  of  long  engagements.  If  the  marriage 
takes  place,  it  must  be  soon." 

With  the  consciousness  of  one  who  is  impelled  to  take  a 
desperate  leap,  Beauvayse  found  himself  saying: 

"  It  cannot  be  too  soon." 

"Then  .  .  .  before  the  Relief?"  cried  Lady  Hannah,  and 
Beauvayse  heard  himself  answering: 

"  If  Lynette  agrees?" 

The  rapture  of  submission  in  her  look  was  intoxicating.  He 
reached  out  his  hand  and  laid  it  lightly  on  her  shoulder.  Then, 
without  another  word,  they  went  out  together,  and  the  tall, 
soldierly  figure  in  brown,  and  the  slender  shape  in  the  green 
skirt  and  little  white  coat,  with  the  dainty-plumed  hat  crown- 
ing the  squirrel-coloured  hair,  were  seen  in  darkening  relief 
against  the  flaming  orange  of  the  sky. 

"  A  Wedding  under  Fire.  Bridal  Ceremony  in  a  Be- 
leaguered City,"  murmured  the  enthusiastic  journalist.  Her 
gold  fountain-pen,  hanging  at  her  chatelaine,  seemed  to  wriggle 
like  a  thing  of  life,  as  she  imagined  herself  aiding,  planning, 
assisting  at,  and  finally  sitting  down  to  describe  the  ceremony 
and  the  wedding-veil  on  the  little  Greek  head.  She  babbled  as 
her  quick,  bird-like  gait  carried  her  along  beside  the  tall, 
stately-moving  figure  in  the  black  habit. 

"  Dear  Bridget  ...  I  may  call  you  that  for  the  sake  of 
old  days?" 

"  If  you  like." 

"  This  must  make  you  very  happy.  Society  mothers  of  mar- 
riageable daughters  will  tear  their  transformations  from  their 
heads,  and  dance  upon  them  in  despair,  when  they  hear  that 
Beau  c'est  range.  But  that  I  don't  hold  forth  to  worldly  ears 
I  would  enlarge  upon  the  immense  social  advantages  of  such  a 
union  for  that  dear  child." 

"  Of  course,  I  am  aware  that    it  is  an  excellent  match." 

Were  her  ears  so  unworldly?  The  phrase  rankled  in  her 
conscience  like  a  thorn.  And  in  what  respect  were  those  Society 
mothers  less  managing  than  the  nun?  she  asked  herself.  Could 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  373 

any  of  them  have  been  more  astute,  more  eager,  more  bent  on 
hooking  the  desirable  parti  for  their  girls  than  she  had  shown 
herself  just  now?  And  was  this,  again,  an  unworldly  voice 
whispering  to  her  that  the  publicity  ensured  by  a  paragraph 
penned  by  this  gossip-loving  little  lady  would  fix  him  even 
more  securely,  bind  him  more  strongly,  make  it  even  less  pos- 
sible for  him  to  retreat,  should  he  desire  to  burn  his  boats  behind 
him,  so  that  he  had  no  alternative  but  to  go  on?  She  sickened 
with  loathing  of  herself.  But  for  her  there  was  no  retreat 
either.  Here  Lady  Hannah  helped  her  unawares.  With  a 
side-glance  at  the  noble  face  beside  her,  pale  olive-hued,  worn 
and  faded  beyond  the  age  of  the  woman  by  her  great,  labours 
and  her  greater  griefs,  the  arched  black  eyebrows  sprinkled  of 
late  with  grey,  the  eyelids  thin  over  the  mobile  eyeballs,  purpled 
with  lack  of  sleep  and  secret,  bitter  weeping,  the  close-folded, 
deeply  cut,  eloquent  mouth  withered  like  a  japonica-bloom 
that  lingers  on  in  frost,  the  strong  salient  chin  framed  in  the 
snowy,  starched  guimpe,  she  hesitated: 

"  You  don't  shy  at  the  notion  of  the  par — the  announce- 
ment in  the  Siege  Gazette,  I  mean?  .  .  ." 

"  Upon  the  contrary,  I  approve  of  it,"  said  the  Mother,  and 
walked  on  very  fast,  for  the  bells  of  the  Catholic  Church  were 
ringing  for  Benediction. 

"  Is  it  good-night,  or  may  I  come  in?  "  Beauvayse  whispered 
to  Lynette  in  the  porch. 

She  dipped  her  slender  fingers  in  the  little  holy-water  font 
beside  the  door,  and  held  them  out  to  him. 

"  Come  in,"  she  answered,  and  held  white,  wet  fingers  out 
to  him.  He  touched  them  with  a  puzzled  smile. 

"  Am  I  to Ah,  I  remember." 

Their  eyes  met,  and  the  golden  radiance  in  hers  passed  into 
his  blood.  He  bared  his  high,  fair  head  as  she  made  the  sign 
of  the  Cross,  and  followed  her  in  and  up  the  nave  as  Father 
Wilx,  in  purple  Lenten  stole  over  the  snowy  cotta  starched 
and  ironed  by  Sister  Tobias's  capable  hands,  began  to  intone 
the  Sorrowful  Mysteries  of  the  Rosary.  The  Sisters  were  al- 
ready in  their  places — a  double  row  of  black-draped  figures, 
the  Mother  at  the  end  of  the  first  row,  Lady  Hannah  in  the 
chair  beside  her,  where  Lynette  had  always  sat  until  now.  It 
was  not  without  a  pang  that  the  one  saw  her  place  usurped 
by  a  stranger;  it  was  piercing  pain  to  the  other  to  feel  the 
strange  presence  at  her  side.  But  something  had  already  come 
between  these  two,  dividing  them.  Something  invisible,  im- 


374  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

palpable  as  air,  but  nevertheless  thrusting  them  apart  with  a 
force  that  might  not  be  resisted. 

Only  the  elder  of  the  two  as  yet  knew  clearly  what  it 
meant.  The  younger  was  too  dizzy  with  her  first  heady 
draught  from  the  cup  of  joy,  held  to  her  lips  by  the  strong, 
beautifully-shaped  brown  hand  that  rested  on  Beauvayse's 
knee  as  he  sat,  or  propped  up  Beauvayse's  chin  as  he  knelt, 
stiff  as  a  young  crusader  on  a  monument,  beside  her.  But 
the  Mother  knew.  Would  not  the  God  Who  had  been  justly 
offended  in  her,  His  vowed  servant,  that  day,  exact  to  the  last 
tittle  the  penalty?  She  knew  He  would. 

Rosary  ended,  the  thin,  kind-eyed  little  elderly  priest 
preached,  taking  for  the  text  of  his  discourse  the  Tract  from 
the  Office  of  Septuagesima. 

"  Commovisti,  Domine,  terram  et  conturbasti.  .  .  ." 

"  Thou  hast  moved  the  earth,  O  Lord,  and  troubled  it ; 
heal  Thou  the  breaches  thereof.  .  .  .  That  Thy  elect  may 
flee  from  before  the  bow:  that  they  may  be  delivered." 

Then  the  O  Salutaris  was  sung,  and  followed  by  the  Litany 
of  the  Holy  Name. 

The  church  was  crowded.  A  Catholic  congregation  is  al- 
ways devout,  but  these  people,  well-dressed  or  ill-dressed,  pros- 
perous or  poor,  pale-faced  and  hollow-eyed  every  one,  joined 
in  the  office  with  passion.  The  responses  came  like  the 
beating  of  one  wave  of  human  anguish  upon  the  Rock  of 
Ages. 

"  Have  mercy  on  us! " 

Hungry,  they  cried  to  One  Who  had  hungered.  Sinking 
with  weariness,  they  appealed  to  One  Who  had  known  labours, 
faintings,  agonies,  and  desolations. 

"Have  mercy  on  us!" 

He  had  drunk  of  Death  for  them,  had  been  buried  and  had 
risen  again. 

Death  was  all  about  them.  They  could  hear  the  beating 
of  his  wings,  could  see  the  red  sweep  of  his  blood-wet,  dripping 
scythe.  And  they  prayed  as  they  had  never  prayed  before  these 
things  befell: 

"Have  mercy  on  us!" 

They  sang  the  Tantum  Ergo,  and  the  cloud  of  incense  rose 
from  the  censer  in  the  priest's  hand.  Then,  at  the  thin,  sweet 
tinkle  of  the  bell,  and  the  first  white  gleam  of  the  Unspeakable 
Mystery  upheld  by  the  servant  of  the  Altar,  the  heads  bowed 
and  sank  as  when  a  sudden  wind  sweeps  over  a  field  of  ripened 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  375 

corn.  Only  one  or  two  remained  unmoved,  one  of  these  a 
man's  head,  young  and  crisply-waved,  and  golden.  .  .  . 

And  then  came  the  orderly  crowding  to  the  door,  and  they 
were  outside  under  the  great  violet  sky  throbbing  with  splen- 
did stars,  breathing  the  tainted  air  that  came  from  the  laagers 
and  the  trenches.  But  oh,  was  there  ever  a  sweeter  night, 
following  upon  a  sweeter  day? 

Beauvayse's  hand  found  and  pressed  Lynette's.  She  looked 
up  and  saw  his  eyes  shining  in  the  starlight.  He  looked  down 
and  saw  the  Convent  lily  transformed  into  a  very  rose  of 
womanhood. 

"  I  am  on  duty  at  Staff  Bomb-proof  South  to-night.  What 
I  would  give  to  be  free  to  walk  home  with  you !  " 

Lady  Hannah's  jangling  laugh  came  in. 

"  Haven't  you  had  the  whole  day?  Greedy,  unconscionable 
young  man !  Say  good-night  to  her,  and  be  off  and  get  some 
food  into  you.  Don't  say  you  haven't  any  appetite.  I  am 
hungry  enough  to  be  interested  even  in  minced  mule  and  spatch- 
cocked locusts,  after  all  this.  Good-night!  I  must  kiss  you 
again,  child.  I  hope  you  don't  mind?" 

Lynette  gave  her  cheek,  asking: 

"Where  is  the  Mother?" 

The  voice  of  Sister  Tobias  answered  out  of  the  purplish 
darkness : 

"  She  has  gone  on  with  Sister  Hilda-Antony  and  Sister 
Cleophee,  dearie.  She  is  going  to  sleep  at  the  Convent  with 
them,  and  I  was  to  give  you  her  love,  and  say  good-night." 

Say  good-night!  On  this  of  all  nights  was  Lynette  to  be 
dismissed  without  even  the  Mother's  kiss?  She  gave  back 
Beauvayse's  parting  hand-pressure  almost  mechanically.  Then 
she  heard  his  voice  close  at  her  ear,  say  pantingly: 

"  No  one  will  see.  .  .  .     Please,  dearest !  " 

She  turned  her  head,  and  their  lips  met  under  cover  of  the 
pansy-coloured  darkness.  .  .  .  Then  he  was  gone  with  Lady 
Hannah,  and  Lynette  was  walking  home  to  the  Convent  bomb- 
proof, explaining  to  the  astonished  Sisters  that  the  Mother 
knew;  that  the  Mother  approved  of  her  engagement  to  Lord 
Beauvayse;  and  that  they  would  probably  be  married  very 
soon.  Before  the  Relief  .  .  . 

" '  Before  the  Relief.'  Well,  no  one  but  Our  Lord  knows 
when  that's  to  be.  .  .  .  And  so  you're  very  happy,  are  you, 
dearie?" 

Even  as  she  gave  her  shy  j.ssent  in  answer  to  Sister  Tobias's 


376  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

question,  its  commonplace  homeliness,  like  the  feeling  of  the 
thick  dust,  and  the  scattered  debris  underfoot,  brought  back 
Lynette  for  a  moment  out  of  the  golden,  diamond-dusted, 
pearl-gemmed  dream-world  in  which  she  had  been  straying,  to 
wonder,  Was  she  really  very  happy  ? 

She  asked  herself  the  question  sitting  with  the  Sisters  at  their 
little  scanty  supper.  She  asked  herself  as  she  knelt  with 
them  in  prayer,  as  she  lay  in  bed,  the  Mother's  place  vacant 
beside  her,  the  pillow  her  head's  resting-place  instead  of  that 
dear,  familiar  breast.  Was  she  happy  after  all? 

She  had  drunk  sweetness,  but  there  had  been  a  tang  of  some- 
thing in  the  sup  that  cloyed  the  palate  and  sickened  the  soul. 
She  had  learned  the  love  of  man,  and  in  a  measure  it  had  cast 
out  fear,  that  had  been  her  earlier  lesson.  To  be  held  and 
taken  and  made  his  completely,  what  must  it  be  like?  She 
glowed  in  the  darkness  at  the  thought.  And  then  the  rec- 
ollection of  a  ruthless  strength  that  had  rent  away  the  veil  of 
innocence  from  a  woman-child  surged  back  upon  her. 

Just  think.  Suppose  you  laid  your  hand  in  the  warm,  strong 
clasp  that  thrilled  delight  to  every  nerve,  and  set  your  heart 
beating,  beating,  and,  drawn  by  the  shining  grey-green  jewel- 
eyes  and  the  mysterious,  wooing  smile  upon  the  beautiful  lips, 
and  the  coaxing,  caressing  tones  of  the  voice  that  so  allured, 
you  gave  up  all  else  that  had  been  so  dear,  and  went  away  with 
him?  What  then?  Suppose 

Suppose  the  smiling  face  of  Love  should  turn  out  to  be  noth- 
ing but  a  mask  hiding  the  gross  and  brutal  grin  of  Lust,  what 
then  ?  She  saw  that  other  man's  printed  face,  in  hot  and  living 
colours  upon  the  darkness.  She  writhed  as  if  to  tear  her  lips 
from  the  savage,  furious  mouth.  She  shuddered  and  grew 
cold  there  in  the  sultry  heat.  The  clasp  of  the  protecting 
mother-arms  might  have  driven  away  her  terror,  but  she  was 
alone.  It  would  have  been  sweet  to  be  alone  that  night  if  she 
had  been  happy. 

Why  had  the  Mother  shunned  her?  She  knew  that  she 
had.  Why  had  she  felt,  even  with  the  glamour  of  his  pres- 
ence about  her,  and  the  music  of  his  voice  in  her  ears,  that  all 
was  not  well? 

Why,  even  with  the  lifting  of  her  burden,  in  the  unutter- 
able relief  of  hearing,  from  the  lips  that  had  been  her  law,  that 
her  dreadful  secret  need  never  be  revealed,  had  she  felt  con- 
sternation and  alarm?  The  words  were  written  in  fiery  let- 
ters, on  the  murky  dark  of  the  bombproof,  where  the  tiny 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  377 

lamp  that  had  burned  before  the  Tabernacle  on  the  altar  of 
the  Convent  chapel  burned,  a  twinkling  red  star  before  the 
silver  crucifix  that  hung  upon  the  east  wall. 

"  He  is  not  to  be  told.     I  command  you  never  to  tell  him." 

The  doubt  germinated  and  presently  pushed  through  a  lit- 
tle spear.  Had  those  lips  given  right  counsel  or  wrong? 
Ought  he  to  be  told?  Was  it  dishonest,  was  it  traitorous,  to 
hide  the  truth?  And  yet,  what  are  the  lives  of  even  the  up- 
right, and  clean,  and  continent  among  men,  compared  with 
the  life  of  a  girl  bred  as  she  had  been  ?  The  sin  had  not  been 
hers.  She,  the  victim,  was  blameless.  And  yet,  and  yet  .  .  . 

To  this  girl,  who  had  learned  to  see  the  Face  of  Christ  and 
of  His  Mother  reflected  in  one  human  face  that  had  smiled 
down  upon  her,  waking  in  the  little  white  bed  in  the  Convent 
infirmary  from  the  long,  recuperating  sleep  that  turns  the  tide 
of  brain-fever,  the  thought  that  a  shadow  of  deceit  could  mar 
its  earnest,  candid  purity  was  torture.  Months  back  they  had 
said  to  her — the  lips  that  had  given  her  the  first  kiss  she  had 
received  since  a  dying  woman's  cold  mouth  touched  the  sleep- 
ing face  of  a  yellow-haired  baby  held  to  her  in  a  strong  man's 
shaking  hands,  as  the  trek-waggon  rolled  and  rumbled  over 
the  veld: 

"  The  man  who  may  one  day  be  your  husband  will  have 
the  right  to  know." 

It  was  a  different  voice  to  the  one  that  had  commanded, 
"  You  are  never  to  tell  him."  Lynette  lay  listening  to  those 
two  voices  until  the  alarm-clock  belled  and  the  Sisters  rose  at 
midnight  for  matins.  Then  she  lay  listening  to  the  soft  mur- 
mur of  voices  in  the  dark,  as  the  red  lamp  glimmered  before 
the  silver  Christ  upon  the  wall.  The  nuns  needed  no  light, 
knowing  the  office  by  heart: 

" Delict 'a  quis  intelligit?  ab  octa  meis  munda  me.  Et  ab 
alienis  parce  servo  tuo  " — "  Who  can  comprehend  what  sin 
is?  Cleanse  me  from  my  hidden  sins,  and  from  those  of  others 
save  Thy  servant." 

The  antiphon  followed  the  Gloria,  and  then  the  soft 
womanly  voices  chanted  the  twenty-third  Psalm: 

"Quis  ascendit  in  montem  Domini?" — "Who  shall  ascend 
to  the  Mount  of  the  Lord,  and  who  shall  dwell  in  His  holy 
Sanctuary?  Those  who  do  no  ill  and  are  pure.  .  .  .  who  do 
not  give  their  heart  to  vain  desires,  or  deceive  their  neighbour 
with  false  oaths." 

Or  deceive  .  .  .  with  false  oaths.     To  marry  a  man  letting 


378  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

him  think  you  .  .  .  something  you  were  not  .  .  .  did  not  that 
amount  to  deceiving  by  a  false  oath? 

Lynette  lay  very  still.  The  last  "  Hail,  Mary  "  over,  the 
Sisters  returned  silently  to  bed.  Wire  mattresses  creaked  un- 
der superimposed  weight.  Long  breaths  of  wakefulness 
changed  into  the  even  breathing  of  slumber.  The  only  one 
who  snored  was  Sister  Tobias,  a  confirmed  nasal  soloist,  whose 
customary  cornet-solo  was  strangely  missing.  Was  Sister  To- 
bias lying  awake  and  remembering  too? 

Sister  Tobias  was  the  only  other  person  in  the  Convent 
besides  the  Mother  who  knew.  She  had  helped  her  faithfully 
and  tenderly  to  nurse  Lynette  through  the  long  illness  that  had 
followed  the  rinding  of  that  lost  thing  upon  the  veld.  She 
was  a  homely  creature  of  saintly  virtues,  the  Mother's  staff 
and  right  hand.  And  it  was  she  who  had  asked  Lynette  if 
she  was  happy? 

Somebody  was  moving.  The  grey  light  of  dawn  was  filter- 
ing down  the  drain-pipe  ventilators  and  through  the  chinks 
in  the  tarpaulins  overhead.  A  formless  pale  figure  came 
swiftly  to  Lynette's  bedside.  She  guessed  who  it  must  be. 
She  sat  up  wide  awake,  and  with  her  heart  beating  wildly  in 
her  throat. 

"  Dearie !  "  The  whisper  was  Sister  Tobias's.  She  could 
make  out  the  glimmer  of  the  white,  plain  nightcap  framing 
the  narrow  face  with  the  long,  sagacious  nose  and  wise,  kindly, 
patient  eyes.  "  Are  you  awake,  dearie  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  Lynette  whispered  back,  shuddering.  The  dry, 
warm,  hard  hand  felt,  about  for  her  cold  one,  and  found  and 
(took  it.  Lips  came  close  to  her  ear,  and  breathed: 

"  Dearie,  this  grand  young  gentleman  you're  engaged  to  be 
married  to  .  .  ." 

"Yes?" 

"Has  he  been   told?     Does  he  know?" 

The  long,  plain  face  was  close  to  Lynette's.  In  the  greying 
light  she  could  see  it  clearly.  Her  heart  beat  in  heavy,  sick- 
ening thuds.  Her  teeth  chattered,  and  her  whole  body  shook 
as  if  with  ague,  as  she  faltered: 

"  The  Mother  says — he  is  not  to  be  told." 

There  was  a  dead  silence.  It  was  as  if  an  iron  shutter  had 
suddenly  been  pulled  down  and  clamped  home  between  them. 
Then  Sister  Tobias  said  in  a  tone  devoid  of  all  expression: 

"  The  Mother  knows  best,  dearie,  of  course.  Lie  down 
and  go  to  sleep." 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  379 

Then  silence  settled  back  upon  the  Convent  bombproof,  but 
sleep  did  not  come  to  everybody  there. 


XLIII 

THE  Mother  was  kneeling,  as  she  had  knelt  the  whole  night 
through,  before  the  dismantled  altar  in  the  battered  little 
chapel  of  the  Convent,  with  the  big  white  stars  looking  down 
upon  her  through  the  gaps  in  the  shell-torn  roof.  When  it 
was  the  matin-hour  she  rose  and  rang  the  bell.  Matins  over, 
she  still  knelt  on.  When  it  was  broad  day  she  broke  her  fast 
with  the  Sisters,  and  went  about  the  business  of  the  day  calmly, 
collectedly,  capably  as  ever.  Only  her  face  was  white  and 
drawn,  and  great  violet  circles  were  about  her  great  tragical 
grey  eyes. 

"The  blessed  Saint  she  is!?>  whispered  the  nuns  one  to  the 
other. 

If  she  had  heard  them,  it  would  have  added  yet  another  iron 
point  to  the  merciless  scourge  of  her  self-scorn. 

A  Saint,  in  that  stained  garment!  What  tears  of  bitterness 
had  fallen  that  night  upon  the  shameful  blots  that  marred  its 
whiteness!  But  for  Richard's  child,  even  though  she  herself 
must  become  a  castaway,  she  must  go  on  to  the  end.  All  the 
chivalry  in  her  rose  in  arms  to  defend  the  young,  shame- 
burdened,  blameless  head. 

Ah !  if  she  had  known  ?  .  .  . 

Cold,  light,  cruel  eyes  had  watched  from  across  the  river 
that  day  as  her  tall,  imposing  figure,  side  by  side  with  the 
slender,  more  lightly-clad  one  moved  between  the  mimosa- 
bushes  and  round  the  river-bend.  When  the  two  were  fairly 
out  of  sight,  the  jungle  of  tree-fern  and  "cactus  had  rustled  and 
cracked.  Then  the  burly,  thick-set,  powerful  figure  of  a 
bearded  man  pushed  through,  crossed  the  reedbeds,  and,  leap- 
ing from  boulder  to  boulder,  crossed  the  river.  Before  long 
the  man  was  standing  on  the  patch  of  trodden  grass  and  flow- 
ers in  the  lee  of  the  great  boulder,  shutting  up  a  little  single- 
barrelled,  brass-mounted  fieldglass  that  had  served  him  ex- 
cellently well.  He  was  Bough,  alms  Van  Busch,  otherwise 
the  man  who  had  come  in  through  the  enemy's  lines  as  a  runner 
from  Diamond  Town  with  the  letter  (well-meant)  from  a 
hypothetical  Mrs.  Casey  to  a  Mr.  Casey  who  did  not  exist. 
His  light  eyes,  that  were  the  colour  of  browned  steel,  and  set 


380  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

flat  in  their  shallow  orbits  like  an  adder's,  looked  about  and 
all  around  the  place,  as  he  stroked  the  dense  brake  of  black- 
brown  beard  that  cleverly  filled  in  the  interval  between  Mr. 
Van  Busch's  luxuriant  whiskers.  Presently  he  stooped  and 
picked  up  a  little  tan-leather  glove,  lying  in  a  tuft  of  pink 
flowers.  The  daintiness  of  the  little  glove  and  the  perfume 
that  clung  about  it  brought  home  to  Bough  more  forcibly  than 
anything  else  that  the  Kid  had  become  a  lady. 

For  it  was  the  girl,  sure.  No  error  about  that  little  white 
face  of  hers,  with  the  pointed  chin,  and  the  topaz-coloured 
eyes,  and  the  reddish  hair.  The  glass  had  brought  her  near 
enough  to  make  that  quite  certain.  He  had  been  too  far  off 
to  hear  a  word,  but  he  had  made  out  what  had  been  going  on 
very  well.  First,  while  she  had  been  giddying  with  the  tall 
young  English  swell,  drawing  him  on  while  he  seemed  court- 
ing her,  as  all  women  knew  how  to,  and  again  when  the  tall 
Sister  of  Mercy  came  and  rowed  her  and  she  had  cried,  thrown 
down  there  among  the  grass  and  flowers,  exactly  as  if  some- 
body had  beaten  her  with  a  sjambok  to  cure  her  of  the  G.  D.'d 
obstinacy  that  had  to  be  thrashed  out  of  women,  if  you  would 
have  them  get  to  heel  when  you  chose  it,  or  come  at  your  call 
when  you  chose  again. 

Suppose  he  chose  again.  When  a  man  with  brains  in  his 
holy  head  once  set  them  to  work,  there  were  few  things  he 
could  not  do.  He  could  scare  others  off  his  property,  for  cer- 
tain. He  could  exercise  upon  the  girl  herself  the  unlimited 
power  of  Fear.  He  must  lie  doggo  because  of  the  Doctor. 
It  was  a  thundering  queer  chance  the  Doctor  turning  up  in 
this  place.  And  one  of  the  bosses,  helping  to  run  the  show, 
and  powerful  enough  to  pay  off  old  scores,  if  he  should  chance 
to  recognize  in  the  densely  bearded  face  of  the  man  from 
Diamond  Town  the  features  of  the  Principal  Witness  in  the 
once  famous  Old  Bailey  Criminal  Case :  "  The  Crown  vs* 
Saxham." 

Bough  would  lie  low,  and  watch,  and  wait,  and  then  spring, 
as  the  tarantula  springs.  He  had  cleverly  blurred  all  trails 
leading  back  to  the  tavern  on  the  veld,  and  he  knew  enough 
of  girls  and  women  to  believe  that  this  girl  had  kept  secret 
what  had  happened  there.  He  would  pick  up  with  her,  any- 
way, and  offer  to  marry  her  and  make  an  honest  girl  of  her. 
If  she  had  a  snivelling  fancy  for  the  dandy  swell  who  had 
made  love  to  her  and  kissed  her,  he  would  threaten  to  tell  the 
fellow  the  truth  unless  she_gave  him  up.  Or  he  would  blow 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  381 

on  her  to  the  nuns  she  lived  with,  and  they  would  have  noth- 
ing more  to  do  with  her. 

Voor  den  donder!  suppose  they  knew  already?  The  plan 
wanted  careful  working  out.  A  false  step,  and  Gueldersdorp 
might  become  unhealthy  for  the  man  who  had  brought,  the  let- 
ter from  Diamond  Town  to  oblige  Mrs.  Casey. 

Suppose  the  spoor  that  led  back  to  the  tavern  on  the  veld 
and  the  grave  by  the  Little  Kopje,  not  as  well  hidden  as  Bough 
had  thought,  those  jewels  and  securities  and  the  one  thousand 
seven  hundred  pounds  cash  might  get  an  honest  man  into 
trouble  yet,  even  after  the  lapse  of  seventeen  years.  He 
breathed  heavily,  and  the  pupils  of  his  strange  light  eyes  dilated, 
and  the  sweat  rolled  off  his  forehead  and  cheeks  until  the  skin 
shone  like  copper.  He  had  been  a  reckless,  easy-going  young 
chap  of  twenty-five  seventeen  years  ago.  Forty-two  years  of 
life  had  taught  him  that  when  you  are  least  expecting  them  to, 
buried  secrets  are  sure  to  resurrect.  No,  Gueldersdorp  was 
not.  a  healthy  place  for  Bough  or  for  Van  Busch.  That  chat- 
tering little  paroquet  of  a  woman  with  the  sharp  black  eyes 
might  use  them  one  day,  to  the  detriment  of  the  philanthropist 
who  had  brought  in  the  letter  from  Diamond  Town  for  Mrs. 
Casey. 

Then  the  girl!  .  .  ,  He  grinned  in  his  bushy  beard,  think- 
ing how  thundering  scared  she  would  look  if  she  encountered 
him  by  chance,  and  recognized  him.  The  beard  would  not  hide 
him  from  her  eyes.  No,  no !  And  he  smelled  at  the  little  tan 
glove  that  had  the  slight,  clean,  delicate  perfume  about  it,  and 
thrust  it  into  his  trouser-pocket,  and  crossed  the  river  again, 
making  his  way  back  to  the  native  town  by  devious  native  paths 
that  snaked  and  twined  and  twisted  through  the  jungly  bush, 
as  he  himself  made  his  tortuous  progress  through  the  world. 

He  was  in  an  evil  mood,  made  blacker  by  the  prospect  of 
spending  a  lonely  night  without  the  solace  of  liquor  or  woman. 
For  Vice  was  at  a  low  ebb  in  Gueldersdorp  just  now,  and  the 
commonest  dop  was  barely  obtainable  at  the  price  of  good 
champagne,  and  it  would  not  do  for  the  man  from  Diamond 
Town  to  seem  flush  of  dollars. 

Sure,  no,  that  would  never  do!  He  must  make  out  with 
the  tobacco  he  still  had  left,  and  the  big  lump  of  opium  he 
carried  in  a  tin  box  in  a  pocket  of  the  heavy  money-belt  he  wore 
under  his  miner's  flannel  shirt.  He  groped  for-  the  tin  box, 
and  got  it,  and  bit  off  a  corner  of  the  sticky  brown  lump,  and 
ate  it  as  he  went  along,  and  his  laboured  breathing  calmed, 


382  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

and  the  chilly  sweat  dried  upon  his  copper-burned  skin,  that 
had  the  purplish-black  tinge  in  it  that  comes  of  saturation  with 
iodide  of  potassium.  And  the  pupils  of  his  colourless  eyes 
dwindled  to  pin-points,  and  his  thick  hands  ceased  to  shake. 
He  was  not  the  man  he  had  been,  and  .he  had  learned  the 
opium-habit  from  a  woman  who  had  managed  a  joint  at 
Johannesburg,  and  it  grew  upon  him — the  need  of  the  sooth- 
ing, supporting  deadener.  He  went  along  now,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  it  scarcely  feeling  the  ground  under  his  heavy  leather 
veldschoens. 

He  trod  on  something  presently,  lying  on  the  path.  It 
moved  and  whimpered.  He  struck  a  match  with  a  steady 
hand,  and  held  the  glimmering  blue  phosphorus-flame  down- 
wards, and  saw  a  Kaffir  girl,  a  servant  of  the  Barala,  who  had 
crept  out  with  a  bow  strung  with  twisted  crocodile-gut  and  a 
sheaf  of  reed  arrows,  to  try  and  shoot  birds.  The  Barala, 
though  they  were  sorely  pinched,  like  their  European  fellow- 
men,  did  not  starve.  They  earned  pay  and  rations.  They 
helped  to  keep  the  enemy  out  on  the  south  and  west  sides  of  the 
town,  and  dug  most  of  the  trenches — often  under  fire — and 
ran  the  despatches,  and  sometimes  brought,  in  fresh  meat.  But 
their  slaves,  and  the  native  hangers-on  at  the  kraals,  suffered 
horribly.  They  ate  the  dogs  that  had  been  shot,  and  the  other 
kind  of  dog,  and  fought  with  the  live  ones  for  bones,  and 
picked  up  empty  meat-tins  and  licked  them.  They  stalked 
about  the  town  and  the  native  stad  like  living  skeletons.  They 
dropped  and  died  on  the  dust-heaps  they  had  been  rummaging 
for  offal.  Soup-kitchens  were  started  later  on,  when  it  was 
found  how  things  were  going  with  them,  and  hide  and  bones 
and  heads  of  horses  and  mules  were  boiled  down  into  soup, 
and  they  were  fed.  But  a  time  was  to  come  when  even  that 
was  wanted  to  keep  the  life  in  white  people.  You  saw  the 
famine-stricken  black  spectres  crawling  from  refuse-pile  to 
refuse-pile,  and  dying  in  that  pitiless,  beautiful  sunshine,  under 
the  blue,  blue  sky  of  March,  because  white  people  had  got  to 
keep  on  living. 

The  native  girl  had  been  too  weak  to  kill  anything.  Death 
had  come  upon  her  in  the  midst  of  the  teeming  life  of  the 
jungle,  and  she  had  fallen  down  there  in  her  ragged  red 
blanket  among  the  tree-roots  that  arched  and  knotted  over  the 
path.  Her  eyes  were  already  rolled  up  and  set.  They  stared 
blindly,  horribly,  out  of  the  ashen-black  face.  When  she 
heard  the  steps  of  a  shod  man  the  last  spark  of  life  glimmered 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  383 

feebly  up  in  her.  Her  wild,  keen,  savage  power  of  scent  yet 
remained.  She  smelled  a  white  man,  and  her  cracked  and 
swollen  lips  moved,  and  a  voice  like  the  sound  made  by  the 
rubbing  of  dry  canes  together  uttered  the  word  that  is  the 
same  in  Dutch  and  English: 

"Water!" 

Bough's  pale,  flat,  scintillating  eyes  were  quite  expressionless, 
but  his  thick  lips  parted,  and  his  strong  even  teeth  showed  in 
his  thick  brake  of  beard.  With  the  caution  of  one  who  knows 
that  a  single  glowing  match-end  dropped  among  dry  vegeta- 
tion may  cause  a  devastating  conflagration  he  blew  out  the 
lingering  flame,  and  rolled  the  little  charred  stick  between  his 
tough-skinned  fingers  before  he  threw  it  down.  Then  he 
raised  himself  up,  and  stepped  over  the  dying  creature,  and 
went  upon  his  way,  humming  a  dance-tune  he  liked.  He  was 
not  changed.  It  was  still  a  joy  to  him  to  have  feebler  beings 
in  his  power,  and  taunt  and  torture  and  use  them  at  his  will. 

He  had  assumed  the  skin  of  the  man  from  Diamond  Town 
in  the  well-paid  service  of  that  bright  nephew  of  Bronnckers, 
who  had,  it  may  be  remembered,  a  plan. 

The  plan  involved  a  feint  from  the  eastward,  and  an  attack 
upon  that  weakest  spot  in  the  girdle  of  Gueldersdorp's  de- 
fences, the  native  stad.  The  Barafe  might  be  incorruptible; 
the  weak  spot  was  the  native  village,  nevertheless.  And  the 
next  business  of  the  man  from  Diamond  Town  was  to  lounge 
about  its  neighbourhood,  using  those  sharp  light  eyes  of  his 
to  excellent  purposes,  and  storing  his  retentive  memory — for 
it  would  not  do  for  a  stranger  to  be  caught  putting  pencil  to 
paper  in  a  town  under  Martial  Law,  and  bristling  with  sus- 
picion— with  the  information  indispensable  for  the  putting  in 
effect  of  young  Schenk  Eybel's  ingenious  plan. 

The  jackal  had  had  to  yield  his  bone  to  the  hungry  lion. 
Still,  it  was  wise  to  be  in  good  odour  with  the  Republics; 
that  was  why  Van  Busch  had  taken  on  the  job.  He  had  not 
been  impelled  to  risk  his  skin,  and  get  shut  up  in  this  stinking, 
starving  hole  by  anything  the  sharp-eyed  little  Englishwoman, 
so  unpleasantly  awake  at  last  regarding  the  genuine  aims  and 
real  character  of  the  chivalrous  Mr.  Van  Busch  of  Johannes- 
burg, had  dropped.  Hell,  no!  That  unripe,  nectarine  had 
been  plucked  and  eaten  years  ago.  And  yet  how  the  ripe  fruit 
allured  him  to-day,  seen  against  its  background  of  dull  green 
leaves,  its  smooth  cheeks  glowing  under  the  kisses  of  the  sun. 

The  swell  English  officer  had  kissed   them    too.      As    she 


384  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

meant,  the  sly  little  devil,  slipping  away  for  her  bit  of  fun. 
Grown  a  beauty,  too,  as  anybody  but  a  thundering,  juicy, 
damned  fool  might  have  known  she  would.  He  swore  bitterly, 
thinking  what  a  gold-mine  a  face  and  figure  like  that,  might 
have  proved  to  an  honest,  speculator  up  Johannesburg 
way. 

His  case,  he  thought,  was  somewhat  similar  to  that  of  old 
Baas  Jacobs,  the  Boer  who  found  the  first  great  South  African 
diamond  on  his  farm  near  Hopetown,  and  threw  it  down  be- 
side the  door,  with  other  pretty  shining  pebbles,  for  his  child 
to  play  with.  The  child's  mother  tossed  it  to  Van  Niekirk  as 
a  worthless  gift.  Van  Niekirk  passed  it  on  to  J.  O'Reilly. 
When  the  English  Government  mineralogist,  pronounced  the 
stone  a  diamond,  and  the  Colonial  Secretary  and  the  French 
Consul  sent  it  to  the  Paris  Exhibition,  and  the  Governor  of 
the  Colony  bought  the  jewel,  old  Baas  Jacobs  must  have  felt 
mighty  sick.  All  the  world  hungering,  and  admiring,  and 
coveting  the  beautiful  thing  he  had  thrown  down  to  the 
ground.  Small  wonder,  that  to  the  end  of  his  days  he  had 
talked  as  a  robbed  man. 

The  jewel  Bough  had  left  on  the  veld  had  belonged  to  him 
once.  Well,  it  should  be  his  again.  He  swore  that  with  a 
blasphemous  oath.  Thenceforward  he  proceeded  warily,  feel- 
ing his  way,  formulating  his  plan,  a  human  tarantula,  evil- 
eyed  and  hairy-clawed,  calculating  the  sudden  leap  upon  its 
prey,  an  adder  coiled,  waiting  the  moment  to  strike.  .  .  . 


XLIV 

SAXHAM  was  shooting  on  the  veld,  north  of  the  Clay-fields,  in 
a  ginger-hued  dust-wind  and  a  grilling  sun.  Upon  his  right 
showed  the  raw  red  ridge  of  the  earthworks,  where  two  ancient 
seven-pounders  were  entrenched  in  charge  of  a  handful  of 
Cape  Police.  The  pits  of  the  sniping  riflemen  scarred  across 
the  river-bed  some  fifty  yards  in  advance.  Upon  his  left,  a 
quarter-mile  farther  north,  the  recently  resurrected  ship's  gun, 
twelve  feet  of  honeycombed  metal,  stamped  on  the  flank  "  No. 
6  Port,"  and  casting  solid  shot  of  eighteenth-century  pattern, 
projected  a  long  black  nose  from  Fort  Ellerslie,  and  every 
time  the  venerable  weapon  went  off  without  bursting  the 
Town  Guards  occupying  the  Fort  and  manning  the  eastern 
entrenchments  raised  a  cheer. 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  385 

Saxham,  emptying  and  filling  the  magazines  with  cool, 
methodical  regularity,  kept  changing  his  position  with  a  rest- 
lessness and  recklessness  puzzling  alike  to  friends  and  foes. 
Now  he  aimed  and  fired,  lying  "  doggo  "  behind  his  favourite 
stone,  while  bullets  from  the  enemy's  trenches  flattened  them- 
selves upon  it,  or  buried  themselves  harmlessly  in  the  dry  hot 
soil.  Now  he  moved  from  cover,  and  shot  squatting  on  his 
heels,  or  sprawled  lizard-like  in  the  open,  courting  the  King 
of  Terrors  with  a  calm  indifference  that  was  commented  upon 
by  those  who  witnesed  it  according  to  their  lights. 

"  Begob !  "  said  Kildare  of  the  Railway  Volunteers,  who, 
with  the  Cardiff  stoker,  was  doing  duty  at  Fort  Ellerslie  vice 
t.wo  Town  Guardsmen  permanently  resting,  "  'tis  a  great  per- 
fawrumance  the  Doc  is  afther  givin'  us  this  day."  He  coolly 
borrowed  the  gunner's  sighting-glasses,  and,  with  his  keen  eyes 
glued  to  them  and  his  ragged  elbows  propped  on  the  Fort 
parapet,  he  scanned  the  distant  solitary  figure,  dropping  the 
words  out  slowly  one  by  one.  "  Twice  have  I  seen  the  fur  fly 
off  av'  wan  av'  thim  hairy  baboons  since  he  starrtud,  an'  sup- 
posin'  the  air  a  taste  thicker,  'tis  punched  wid  bullet-holes  we'd 
be  seein'  ut  all  round'  um,  the  same  as  a  young  lady  in  the 
sky-in-terrific  dhressmakin'  line  would  be  afther  jabbin'  out  the 
pattern  av'  a  shoot  av'  clothes." 

"  And  look  you  now,  if  the  man  is  not  lighting  a  pipe," 
objected  the  Cardiff  stoker,  whose  religious  tendencies  were 
greatly  fostered  by  the  surroundings  and  conditions  of  siege 
life.  "  Sitting  on  a  stone,  with  the  rifle  between  his  knees 
and  the  match  between  his  two  hands,  as  if  the  teffel  was  gob 
tired  of  waiting,  and  had  curled  up  and  gone  to  sleep."  The 
speaker  sucked  in  his  breath  and  solemnly  shook  his  head, 
adding:  "  It  is  a  temptation  of  the  Tivine  Providence,  so 
it  is." 

"  Sorra  a  timpt,"  rejoined  Kildare,  reluctantly  surrendering 
the  glasses  to  the  gunner,  a  grey  ex-sergeant  of  R.F.A.,  "  sorra 
a  timpt,  knowin',  as  the  Docthur  knows,  that  do  what  we  will 
and  thry  as  he  may,  no  bullut  will  do  more  than  graze  the 
hide  av  him,  or  sing  in  his  ear." 

"  And  how  will  he  know  that,  maybe  you  would  be  tell- 
ing?" demanded  the  Cardiff  stoker  incredulously. 

"  I  seen  his  face,"  said  Kildare,  jerking  a  blackened  thumb 
toward  the  gunner's  sighting-glasses,  "  minnits  back  through 
thim  little  jiggers,  an'  to  man  or  mortal  that's  as  sick  wid  the 
hate  av  Lire,  an'  as  sharp-set  with  the  hunger  for  Death  as 


386  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

the  Docthurr  is  this  day,  no  harrum  will  come.  'Tis  quare, 
but  thrue." 

"  I've  'ad  a  try  at  several  kinds  of  'ungers,"  said  the  R.E. 
Reserve  man,  who  acted  as  gunner's  mate.  "  There's  the 
'unger  for  glory,  combined  with  a  smart  uniform  wot'll  make 
the  gals  stare,  as  drives  a  man  to  'list.  There's  the  'unger  for 
kisses  an'  canoodlin'  wot  makes  yer  want  to  please  the  gals. 
There's  the  'unger  for  revenge,  wot  drives  yer  to  bash  in  a 
bloke's  face,  and  loses  you  yer  stripes  if  'e  'appens  to  be  your 
Corp'ril.  Then  there's  the  'unger  for  gettin'  under  cover 
when  you're  bein'  sniped,  an'  the  'unger  for  blood,  when  you've 
got  the  Hafrids,  or  the  Fuzzies,  or  the  Dutchies,  at  close 
quarters,  and  the  bay'nits  are  flickerin'  in  an'  out  of  the  dirty 
caliker  shirts  or  the  dirty  greatcoats  like  Jimmy  O!  There's 
the  'unger  for  freedom  and  fresh  hair  when  you're  shut  up  in 
a  filthy  mud  cattle-pound  like  this  'ere  Fort,  or  a  stinkin' 
trench  with  a  'andful  of  straw  to  set  on  by  day  an'  a  ragged 
blanket  to  kip  in  by  nights.  But  the  'unger  to  die  is  a  'unger 
/  ain't  acquainted  with.  I'm  for  livin'  myself." 

"  I  was  hungry  when  you  began  to  jaw,"  snarled  the  man 
who  had  been  clerk  to  the  County  Court.  His  lips  were  black 
and  cracking  with  fever,  and  his  teeth  chattered  despite  the 
fierce  sunshine  that,  baked  the  red  claji  parapet  against  which 
he  leaned  his  thin  back.  "  I'm  hungrier  now,  and  thirsty  as 
well.  Give  the  bucket  over  here."  He  drank  of  the  thick, 
yellowish,  boiled  water  eagerly  and  yet  with  disgust,  spilling 
the  liquid  on  his  tattered  clothing  through  the  shaking  of  his 
wasted  hands.  Then  he  turned  to  the  wall,  and  lay  down 
sullenly,  scowling  at  the  lantern-jawed  sympathizer  who  tried 
to  thrust  a  rolled-up  coat  under  his  aching  head. 

"  They'll  be  bringin'  us  our  foddher  at  twelve  av  the  clock," 
Isaid  Kildare,  with  a  twinkle  of  inextinguishable  humour  in  his 
"hollow  eyes.  "  Shuperannuated  cavalry  mount  stuped  in 
warrum  kettle-gravy,  wid  a  block  av  baked  sawdust  for  aich 
man  that  can  get  ut  down.  'Tis  an  insult  to  the  mimory  av 
the  boiled  bacon  an'  greens  I  would  be  aiting  this  day  at 
Carrickaghvore,  to  say  nothin'  of  the  porther  an'  whisky  that 
would  be  washing  ut  down.  Lashin's  and  lavin's  there  'ud  be 
for  ivery  wan,  an'  what  was  over  me  fadher — God  be  good  to 
the  ould  boy  alive  or  dead! — would  be  disthributin'  amongst 
the  poor  forninst  the  dure " 

"  Beg  pardon,  sir."  Another  of  the  famine-bitten,  ragged 
little  garrison  addressed  the  question  to  the  officer  in  charge 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  387 

of  the  Fort  battery,  as  he  stepped  down  from  the  lookout  with 
his  field-glass  in  his  hand.  "  Can  you  tell  us  the  difference 
of  time  between  South  Africa  and  England  ?  " 

"  Two  hours  at.  Capetown.  I'm  not  quite  sure  about  the 
difference  at  Gueldersdorp."  The  Lieutenant  went  over  to  the 
ancient  smooth-bore,  and  conferred  with  the  gunners  standing 
at  her  breech.  The  winches  groaned,  the  heavy  mass  of  metal 
tilted  on  the  improvised  mounting,  as  the  man  to  whom  the 
Lieutenant  had  replied  said,  with  a  quaver  of  longing  in  his 
voice : 

"Two  hours!  My  God,  suppose  it  only  took  that  time  to 
get  home !  " 

"  It  'ud  be  a  sight  easier  to  'ang  on  'ere,"  said  the  R.E.  Re- 
serve man  who  acted  as  gunner's  mate,  "  if  there  was  such  a 
thing  as  a  plug  o'  baccy  to  be  'ad.  Wot  gives  me  the  reg'lar 
sick  is  to  see  them  well-fed  Dutchies  chawin'  an'  blowin', 

blowin'  an'  chawin',  from  mornin'  till  night. "  He  spat 

disgustedly. 

"  When  honust  men,'r  groaned  Kildare,  "  would  swop  a 
year  av  life  for  a  twist  av  naygurhead.  Wirra-wirra ! ' 

There  was  a  dry  and  mirthless  laugh,  showing  teeth,  white 
or  discoloured,  in  haggard  and  bristly  faces.  Then  a  short 
young  Corporal,  who  had  been  leaning  back  in  an  angle  of  the 
earthwork,  hugging  his  sharp  knees  and  staring  at  nothing  in 
particular  with  pale-coloured,  ugly,  honest  eyes,  grew  painfully 
crimson  through  his  crust  of  sun-tan  and  grime,  and  said  some- 
thing that  made  the  lean  bodies  in  ragged,  filthy  tan-cord  and 
dilapidated  khaki,  or  torn  and  muddy  tweed  slew  round  upon 
the  unclean  straw  on  which  they  squatted.  All  eyes,  were  they 
hunger-dull  or  fever-bright,  sought  the  Corporal's  face. 

"  Dessay  you'll  think  me  a  greedy  'ound,"  said  the  Corporal, 
with  a  painful  effort,  that  set  the  prominent  Adam's  apple  in 
his  lean  throat  jerking,  "  when  you  tyke  in  wot  I've  got  to  s'y. 
It  makes  me  want  to  git  into  me  own  pocket  and  'ide,  to  'ave 
to  tell  it.  For  me  an'  you,  we've  shared  an'  shared  alike,  wot- 
ever  we  'ad,  while  we  'ad  anythink — except  in  one  partic'lar." 
The  Adam's  apple  jumped  up  and  down  as  he  gulped.  He 
was  burning  crimson  now  to  the  roots  of  his  ragged,  light- 
brown  hair,  and  the  tips  of  his  flat-rimmed,  jutting  ears,  and 
the  patch  of  thin  bare  chest  that  showed  where  his  coarse  grey 
back  shirt  was  unbuttoned  at.  the  neck. 

All  those  eyes,  feverishly  bright  or  sickly  dull,  watched  him 
as  he  put  his  hand  into  the  bulging  breast-pocket,  and  slowly 


388  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

fished  out  a  shining  brown  briar-root  with  a  stem  unchewed 
as  yet  by  any  smoker. 

"  Twig  this  'ere  noo  pipe.  It  was  sent  me  by  a — by  a 
friend,  along  of  a  packet,  of  'Oneydew,  for  a — for  a  kind  o' 
birthday  present."  His  voice  wobbled  strangely;  there  was 
scalding  water  dammed  up  behind  his  ugly  honest  eyes.  "  She 
— she  bin  an'  opened  the  packet  and  filled  the  pipe,  an'  I  shared 
out  the  'Oneydew  in  the  trenches  as  far  as  it  went,  but  I  bin 
an'  kep'  the  pipe,  sayin  'to  myself  I'd  smoke  it  when  she  lighted 
i'-  wiv  'er  own  'ands,  an'  not — not  before.  Next  day  we" — 
the  Adam's  apple  went  up  and  down  again — "  we  'ad  words, 
an'  parted.  I — I  never  set  heyes  on  'er  dial  since." 

The  voice  of  W.  Keyse  ended  in  an  odd  kind  of  squeak. 
Nobody  looked  at  him  as  he  bit  his  thin  lips  furiously,  and 
blinked  his  honest,  ugly  eyes.  Then  he  went  on :  "  It's — it's 
near  on  two  months  I  bin  lookin'  for  'er.  She — she — some- 
times I  think  she's  made  a  w'y  out  of  the  lines  after  another 
bloke — a  kind  o'  Dutchy  spy  'oo  was  a  pal  of  'ers,  or — or  else 
she's  dead.  There's  times  I've  dreamed  I  seen  'er  dead."  His 
voice  bounded  up  in  that  queer  squeak  again.  The  word 
"  dead  "  was  wrung  out  of  him  like  a  long-fanged  double 
molar.  His  lips  were  drawn  awry  in  a  grimace  of  anguish, 
and  the  pipe  he  held  shook  in  his  gaunt  and  grimy  hand,  so 
perilously  that  half  a  dozen  other  hands,  as  gaunt  and  even 
grimier,  shot  out  as  by  a  single  impulse  to  save  it  from  fall- 
ing. "  Tyke  it  an'  smoke  it  between  yer,"  said  W.  Keyse,  and 
the  Adam's  apple  jammed  again  as  he  gulped.  "  But  read  the 
writin'  on  the  bit  o'  pyper  first,  and  mind  yer — mind  yer  give 
it  back."  He  resigned  the  treasure,  and  turned  his  face  away. 

"Blessed  Mary!"  came  in  the  accent  of  Kildare,  breaking 
the  silence,  "let  me  hould  ut.  in  me  ban's!  " 

"  Spell  out  the  screeve,"  ordered  the  R.E.  Reserve  man  im- 
periously. 

The  Town  Guard  who  had  questioned  the  officer  about  the 
difference  of  time  deciphered  the  blotty  writing  on  the  slip  of 
paper  pinned  round  the  stem  of  the  new  briar-root.  It  ran 
thus: 

"  i  ope  yu  wil  Engoy  this  Pip  Deer ;  i  Fild  it  A  Purpus  with 
Love  and  Maney  Apey  Riturns.  from 

"FARE  'Am." 

"  'Is  gal  ?  "  interrogated  the  Reserve  man. 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  389 

"  His  girl,"  assented  the  man  who  had  read. 

"  And  he  never  saw  her  no  more,  so  he  did  not!  "  commented 
the  Cardiff  stoker  as  the  pipe  travelled  from  hand  to  hand. 
Smelt  at,  dandled,  worshipped  by  every  man  in  turn.  Only 
the  Sergeant-gunner,  the  grey-headed  ex-Artilleryman,  main- 
tained his  self-command  by  dint  of  looking  very  hard  the  other 
way.  Then  said  Kildare  impetuously: 

"  Take  ut  back,  Corp'ril  Keyse.  'Tis  little  wan  poipe  av 
tobacca  wud  count  for  between  six  starvin'  savigees." 

"  Wot  I  wants,"  growled  the  Reserve  man,  "  is  to  over'aul 
a  bacca  factory  afire,  and  clap  my  mouth  to  'er  chimbley-shaft. 
So  take  it  back,  Corporal.  It's  no  manner  o'  good  to  me." 

All  the  other  voices  joined  in  the  chorus,  and  the  bepapered 
pipe  was  thrust  back  upon  its  owner.  W.  Keyse  thanked  them 
soberly,  and  put  her  gift  away. 

His  pale,  unbeautiful  eyes  had  the  anguish  of  despair  in  them, 
and  the  tooth  of  that  sharp  death-hunger  of  which  Kildare 
had  spoken  was  gnawing  what  he  would  have  termed  with  sim- 
plicity "  his  inside."  For  if  she  were  dead  what  had  Life  left 
for  him? 

After  his  first  superb  assumption  of  cold  indifference  had 
broken  down  he  had  sought  her,  feverishly  at  first,  then 
doggedly,  then  with  a  dizzy  sickness  of  terror  and  apprehen- 
sion that  made  the  letters  of  the  type-written  casualty-lists 
posted  outside  the  Staff  Headquarters  in  the  Market  Square 
turn  apparent  somersaults  as  he  strove  to  read  them.  This 
was  his  punishment,  that  he  should  hunger  as  she  had 
hungered,  and  still  be  disappointed,  and  learn  by  fellowship  in 
keenest  suffering  what  her  pain  had  been. 

The  "  Fair  'Air  "  letters  were  some  comfort.  In  the  trench 
at  night,  when  fever  and  rheumatism  kept  him  from  the  dog- 
sleep  that  other  men  were  snatching,  he  would  hear  her  crying 
over  and  over :  "  Oh,  cruel,  to  break  a  poor  girl's  heart !  " 
And  when  sleep  came  he  would  track  her  through  strange 
places,  calling  her  to  come  back — to  come  back  and  be  for- 
given. And  when  he  awakened  from  such  dreams  there  would 
be  tears  upon  his  face.  And  each  day  he  consulted  the  lists  of 
killed  and  wounded,  and  once  had  staggered  white-lipped  to 
the  mortuary-shed  to  identify  a  Jane  Harris,  and  found  her 
— oh,  with  what  unutterable  relief! — to  be  a  coloured  lady 
who  had  married  a  Rifleman.  After  that  he  had  perked  up, 
and  continued  his  quest  for  the  beloved  needle  lost  in  the  hay- 
stack of  Gueldersdorp  with  renewed  belief  in  the  ultimate 


390  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

possibility  of  finding  it.  Then,  in  the  middle  of  one  awful 
night,  the  darkness  of  his  mental  state  had  been  luridly  illu- 
minated by  the  conviction  that  she  had  joined  Slabbert.  Now 
strange  voices  whispered  always  in  his  ears,  saying  that  she 
was  dead,  and  urging  him  to  follow  by  the  same  dark  road  over 
which  her  trembling  feet  had  passed. 

He  heard  those  voices  as  he  wrought  and  sweated  with 
the  gun-team  at  the  levers,  and  the  ponderous  muzzle-loader 
rolled  back  upon  the  grooves  of  her  improvised  mounting. 
He  heard  it  as  they  sponged  the  antique  monster  out,  and  fed 
it  with  a  three-pound  bolus  of  cordite  and  a  ten-pound  ball 
of  ancient  pattern  with  the  date  of  1770.  He  heard  it  now 
again  as  he  kneeled  at  a  loophole  in  the  parapet,  watching  Sax- 
ham.  Those  pale,  ugly  eyes  of  Billy  Keyse  were  extraordinar- 
ily keen.  He  saw  a  grimy  hand  carefully  balance  an  old 
meat-tin  on  the  top  of  the  parapet  of  the  enemy's  western  en- 
trenchment. He  saw  Saxham  kneeling,  aim  and  fire,  and  with 
the  sharp  rap  of  the  exploding  cartridge  came  a  howl  from 
the  owner  of  the  hand,  who  had  not  withdrawn  it  with  suf- 
ficient quickness. 

Half  a  dozen  rifle-muzzles  came  nosing  through  the  loop- 
holes at  that  yell.  There  was  quite  a  little  fusilade,  and  the 
sharp  cracks  and  flashes  in  Saxham's  vicinity  told  of  the  em- 
ployment of  explosive  bullets.  But  not  one  hit  the  man.  An 
unkempt  Boer  head  bobbed  up,  looking  for  his  corpse.  The 
Winchester  cracked,  and  the  unkempt  head  fell  forward,  its 
chin  over  the  edge  of  the  parapet,  and  stayed  there  staring  un- 
til the  comrades  of  its  late  owner  pulled  the  dead  man  down 
by  the  heels. 

There  was  a  cheer  from  the  rifle-pits  in  the  river-bed,  and 
another  from  Fort  Ellerslie,  where  eager  spectators  jostled  at 
the  loop-holes.  A  minute  later  the  Fort's  ancient  bowchaser 
barked  and  pitched  a  solid  shot.  The  metal  spheroid  travelled 
three  thousand  yards,  hit.  the  ground  some  ninety  feet  in  front 
of  the  parapet  where  the  bloody  head  had  hung,  and  over  which 
those  explosive  bullets  had  been  fired,  rose  in  a  cloud  of  dust, 
and  literally  jumped  the  trench.  There  was  a  roar  of  distant 
laughter  as  the  ball  began  to  roll,  and  unkempt  heads  oi 
Dutchmen,  inured  only  to  the  latest  inventions  in  lethal  engi- 
neering, bobbed  up  to  watch.  More  laughter  accompanied 
the  progress  of  the  ball.  But  presently  it  encountered  a  mound 
of  earth,  behind  which  certain  patriots  were  taking  coffee,  and 
rolled  through,  and  the  laughter  ceased  abruptly.  There  was 


ONE    BRAVER   THING       ,  391 

a  baggage-waggon  beyond  through  which  it  also  rolled,  and 
behind  the  waggon  a  plump,  contented  pony  was  wallowing  in 
the  sand.  When  the  ancient  cannon-ball  rolled  through  the 
pony,  the  owner  spoke  of  witchcraft.  But  the  patriots  who 
had  been  sitting  behind  the  mound  made  no  comment  then  or 
thenceforwards. 

At  this  juncture,  and  with  almost  a  sensation  of  pleasure, 
Saxham  saw  his  old  acquaintance  Father  Noah  climb  out  of 
his  particular  trench,  briskly  for  one  well  stricken  in  years, 
and  toddle  out,  laden  with  rifle,  biltong  bag,  and  coffee-can, 
to  his  favourite  sniping-post,  where  a  bush  rose  beside  a  rock, 
which  was  shaded  by  a  small  group  of  blue-gums.  Soon  the 
smoke  of  the  veteran's  pipe  rose  above  his  lurking-place,  and  as 
Saxham,  with  a  grunt  of  satisfaction,  stretched  himself  upon 
his  stomach  on  the  hot,  sandy  earth  and  pulled  the  lever,  a  re- 
turn bullet  sheared  a  piece  off  his  boot-heel,  and  painfully 
jarred  his  ankle-bone. 

No  one  else  was  shooting  at  the  big  Dooinck  now.  It  was 
understood  that  Father  Noah  had  a  prior  claim.  And  the  old 
man  peered  hopefully  up  to  see  the  result,  of  his  shot,  and 
rubbed  his  eyes.  For  the  hulking  dief  was  standing,  voor  den 
donder!  standing  as  he  emptied  his  magazine,  and  the  bullets 
sang  about  Father  Noah  as  viciously  as  hornets  roused  to 
anger  by  the  stripping  of  a  decayed  thatch.  The  magazine 
of  the  repeating-rifle  emptied,  Saxham  calmly  refilled  it,  caus- 
ing the  puzzled  patriarch  to  waste  many  cartridges  in  wild 
shooting  at  that  erect,  indifferent  mark,  and  finally  to  abandon 
the  level-headed  caution  to  which  he  owed  his  venerable  years, 
and  climb  a  tree  to  obtain  a  better  view  of  the  tactics  of  the 
enemy. 

Saxham  laughed  as  the  invisible  hornets  sang  in  the  air  about 
him.  The  battered  solar  helmet  he  wore  was  pierced  through 
the  hinder  brim,  and  he  was  bleeding  from  a  bullet-graze  upon 
the  knuckle  of  the  second  ringer  of  his  left  hand.  Since  that 
Sunday  afternoon  beside  the  river,  when  he  learned  the  mad- 
ness of  his  hope  and  the  hopelessness  of  his  madness,  he  had 
taken  risks  like  this  daily,  not  in  the  deliberate  desire  of  death, 
but  as  a  man  consulting  Fate  negatively. 

Father  Noah  would  decide,  one  way  or  the  other:  the  issue 
of  their  protracted  duel  should  determine  things  for  Saxham. 
If  he  sent  the  old  man  in,  then  there  was  Hope,  if  the  super- 
annuated, short-stocked  Martini,  with  that  steady  old  finger 
on  the  trigger,  and  that  sharp  old  eye  at  the  backsight,  ended 


392  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

by  accounting  for  Saxham,  then  there  would  be  an  end  to  this 
burning  torment  for  ever.  Strangely,  he  did  not  believe  that 
Jie  could  be  killed  by  any  other  hand  than  Father  Noah's. 
Doubtless  the  long  overstrain  was  telling  upon  him  mentally, 
though  physically  the  man  seemed  of  wrought  steel. 

"  To-day  will  settle  it,  one  way  or  the  other.     To-day " 

As  the  thought  passed  through  his  mind,  and  he  brought  the 
sights  into  line  with  the  mark,  a  fluttering  scrap  of  white,  flut- 
tering some  twenty  inches  lower  down,  caught  his  eye.  He 
dropped  the  tip  of  the  Winchester's  foresight  to  the  bottom  of 
the  backsight's  V,  and  knew,  almost  before  the  shot  rang  out, 
and  an  ownerless  Martini  tumbled  out  of  the  tree-crotch,  that 
Fate  had  decided  for  Saxham. 

Then  he  went  back  to  the  Hospital,  grim-jawed  and  inscru- 
table as  ever.  A  dirty  white  rag  was  being  hoisted  on  a  pole 
by  one  of  the  relatives  of  the  deceased.  Father  Noah,  with 
the  long  ends  of  his  dirty  grey  beard  raggedly  bannering  in 
the  dust-wind,  was  still  waiting  for  the  bearers  of  the  hastily 
improvised  stretcher  of  sticks  and  green  reims,  as  Saxham,  hav- 
ing obtained  a  strip  of  black  cloth  with  a  needle  and 
thread  from  the  Matron,  pulled  off  his  jacket  and  sat  down 
upon  the  end  of  the  cot-bed  in  his  little  room,  and  neatly 
tacked  a  mourning-band  upon  the  upper  part  of  the  left 
sleeve. 

It  was  his  nature  to  absorb  himself  in  whatever  work  he 
undertook.  As  he  stitched,  the  crowded  Hospital  buzzed 
about  him  like  a  hive,  the  moans  of  sick  men  and  the  rattling 
breaths  of  the  dying  beat  in  waves  of  sound  upon  his  brain, 
for  the  long  rows  of  beds  stood  upon  either  side  of  the  corridors 
now,  with  barely  a  foot  of  room  between  them.  In  the  neces- 
sarily open  space  before  the  Doctor's  door  a  woman's  hurrying 
footsteps  paused,  there  came  a  rustling,  and  a  sheet  of  printed 
paper  folded  in  half  was  thrust  underneath. 

"  The  Siege  Gazette,  Doctor,"  called  the  Matron's  pleasant 
womanly  voice,  as,  simultaneously  with  the  utterance  of 
Saxham's  brief  word  of  thanks,  she  passed  on.  In  the  famine 
for  news  that  possessed  him,  as  every  other  human  being  in  the 
town,  the  sight,  of  the  little  badly-printed  sheet  was  welcome, 
although  it  could  hardly  contain  anything  to  satisfy  his  need. 
He  set  the  last  stitches,  fastened  and  cut  the  thread,  reached 
down  a  long  arm  from  the  foot,  of  the  bed,  and  took  up  the 
paper. 

The  Latest  Information  had  whiskers.     The  General  Orders 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  393 

announced  an  issue  of  paper  currency  in  small  amounts,  owing 
to  the  deplorable  shortage  of  silver,  congratulated  those 
N.C.O.'s  and  men  of  the  Baraland  Irregulars  who,  under  Lieu- 
tenant Byass,  occupying  the  advanced  S.W.  trenches,  had 
brought  so  effective  a  Maxim-fire  to  bear  upon  the  enemy's  big 
gun  that  Meisje  had  been  compelled  to  abandon  her  command- 
ing position,  and  take  up  her  quarters  in  a  spot  less  advantage- 
ous, from  the  enemy's  point  of  view.  A  reduction  in  the  Forage 
ration  was  hinted  at,  and  a  string  of  Social  Jottings  followed, 
rows  of  asterisks  exploding  like  squibs  under  every  paragraphic,' 
utterance  of  the  Gold  Pen. 

Not  for  nothing  has  Captain  Bingo  dolefully  boasted  that 
his  wife  had  journalism  at  her  finger-ends.  We  recognize  the 
style,  the  very  table-Moselle  of  Fashionable  Journalism.  So 
like  the  genuine  article  in  the  shape  of  the  bottle,  the  topping 
of  gilt-foil,  the  arrangement  of  wire  and  string,  that  as  the 
stinging  foam  overflows  the  goblet,  snapping  in  iridescent 
bubbles  at  the  cautious  sipper's  nose,  and  evaporates,  leaving 
the  sticky,  sweet-sour  drops  of  nothing  in  particular  at  the  bot- 
tom, you  could  hardly  credit  it  to  be  of  one  with  any- 
thing save  the  genuine  beverage  of  Fleet  Street.  Stay.  .  .  . 
The  French  quotations  are  not  enclosed  in  inverted  commas. 
That  lets  Lady  Hannah  out. 

"  Society  in  Gueldersdorp,"  she  wrote,  "  bubbles  with  in- 
terested expectation  of  the  public  announcement  of  a  matri- 
monial engagement  which  the  intimate  friends  of  the  happy 
lovers  profess  etre  aux  anges. 

"  Not  for  worlds  would  we  draw  the  veil  of  delightful 
mystery  completely  aside  from  the  secret  of  two  young,  charm- 
ing and  popular  people.  Yet  it  may  be  hinted  that  the  elder 
son  of  a  representative  English  House  and  heir  of  a  sixteenth- 
century  Marquisate,  who  is  one  of  the  most  gallant  and  dash- 
ing among  the  many  heroic  defenders  of  our  beleaguered  citadel, 
proposes  at  no  very  distant  date  to  lead  to  the  altar  one  of  the 
loveliest  among  the  many  lovely  girls  who  grace  our  social 
functions. 

"  Both  bride-elect  and  bridegroom-to-be  attended  High  Mass 
at  the  Catholic  Church  on  Sunday,  when  the  Rev.  Father 
Wilx,  in  apprising  parishioners  of  the  near  approach  of  Lent, 
caused  an  irresistible  smile  to  ripple  over  the  faces  of  his 
hearers.  Toujours  perdrix  may  sate  in  the  long-run,  but 


394  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

perpetually  to  faire  maigre  is  attended  with  even  greater  dis- 
comfort. 

•  •  •  •  • 

"  We  have  pleasure  in  announcing  the  approaching  marriage 
of  Lieutenant  the  Earl  of  Beauvayse,  Grey  Hussars,  Junior 
Aide  to  the  Colonel  Commanding  H.M.  Forces,  Gueldersdorp, 
to  Miss  Lynette  Bridget-Mary  Mildare,  ward  of  the  Mother- 
Superior,  Convent  of  the  Holy  Way,  North  Veld  Road." 


XLV 

SAXHAM  has  not  been  staring  at  the  printed  words  because 
they  have  struck  him  to  the  heart  with  their  intelligence,  but 
— or  it  seems  to  him — because  they  convey  nothing.  There 
is  an  aching  pain  at  the  back  of  his  neck,  and  his  mind  is 
curiously  dull  and  sluggish.  But  after  a  little  he  becomes 
aware  that  somebody  is  knocking  at  his  door. 

"  Who  is  it " 

The  Doctor  thinks  he  utters  these  words,  but  in  reality 
he  has  only  made  a  harsh  croaking  sound  that  might  mean 
anything.  The  door  opens  and  shows  the  Chaplain  standing 
smiling  on  the  threshold. 

The  Reverend  Julius  Fraithorn,  no  longer  a  worn  and 
wasted  pilgrim  stumbling  amongst  the  thorns  and  sharp  stones 
of  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow,  appears  in  these  days  as  a  per- 
fectly sound  and  healthy,  if  rather  too  narrow-shouldered, 
young  Anglican  clergyman,  not  unbecomingly  arrayed,  in 
virtue  of  his  official  position  under  martial  authority,  in  a  suit 
of  Service  khaki  such  as  Saxham  wears,  with  the  black  Maltese 
Cross  on  the  collar  and  the  band  of  the  wide-peaked  cap. 
Yellow  putties  conceal  the  unduly  spare  proportions  of  his 
active  legs,  and  the  brown  boots  upon  his  long  slender  feet  are 
dusty,  as,  indeed,  is  the  rest  of  him,  not  with  the  reddish  dust 
of  the  veld  that  powders  Saxham  to  the  very  eyelashes,  and  lies 
in  light  drifts  in  every  wrinkle  of  his  garments,  but  with  the 
yellowish  dust  of  the  town. 

"  I  rather  thought,"  the  Chaplain  says,  hesitating,  as  Sax- 
ham,  without  lifting  his  eyes,  turns  his  square,  white  face  upon 
the  visitor,  "  that  you  said  '  Come  in  '  ?  " 

"  Come  in,  and  shut  the  door,  and  sit  down,"  says  Saxham 
heavily  and  thickly.  And. Julius  does  so,  and,  occupying  the 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  395 

single  cane-seated  chair  the  bedroom  boasts,  glows  upon  Sax- 
ham  with  a  sincerity  of  affection  and  a  simplicity  of  admiration 
pleasant  to  see,  and  asks  in  his  thin,  sweet  voice  how  things  are 
going. 

"  Things  are  going,"  Saxham  returns,  seeming  to  wake 
from  a  heavy  brown  study.  "  You  could  not  put  it  better  or 
more  clearly.  Will  you  smoke  ? "  He  pitches  a  rubber 
tobacco-pouch  to  the  Chaplain,  who  catches  it,  and  the  treas- 
ured box  of  matches  that  comes  after,  and  as  one  man  sparingly 
fills  a  wTell-browned  meerschaum,  and  the  other  a  blackened 
briar-root,  with  the  weed  that  grows  more  rare  and  precious 
with  every  hour  of  these  days  of  dearth:  "That's  one  of  the 
things  that  are  going  quickest  after  bichloride  of  mercury, 
carbolic,  and  extract  of  beef.  As  a  fact,  we  are  using  for- 
maldehyde as  an  anaesthetic  in  minor  operations;  and  violet 
powder  and  starch,  upon  the  external  use  of  which  I  laid  an 
embargo  weeks  ago,  to  the  great  indignation  of  the  younger 
nurses,  are  being  employed  instead  of  arrowroot.  And  the 
more  the  medical  stores  diminish,  the  more  the  patients  come 
rolling  in." 

"  And  each  new  want  that  arises,  and  each  new  difficulty 
that  crops  up,  finds  in  you  the  man  to  meet  it  and  overcome 
it,"  says  the  Chaplain  fervently.  He  is  disposed  to  make  a 
hero  of  this  brilliant  surgeon  who  has  saved  his  life,  and  his 
enthusiasm  is  only  marred  by  Saxham's  painfully-apparent  lack 
of  belief  in  certain  vital  spiritual  truths  that  are  the  daily 
bread  of  fervent  Christian  souls.  Now  that,  he  has  become 
aware  of  the  black  band  upon  the  sleeve  of  the  jacket  that  lies 
across  Saxham's  knees,  where  he  sits  upon  the  end  of  the  cot- 
bed  that,  with  a  tiny  chest  of  drawers  and  a  hanging  bookshelf 
laden  with  volumes  and  instrument-cases,  completes  the  fur- 
nishing of  the  narrow  room,  he  says,  with  sympathy  in  his 
gentle  voice  and  in  the  brown  eyes  that  have  the  soft  lustre  of 
a  deer's  or  of  a  beautiful  woman's: 

"  I  am  sorry  to  see  this,  Saxham.     You  have  lost  a  friend  ?  " 

"Lost  a  friend?" 

Saxham,  echoing  the  last  three  words,  stares  at  the  Chap- 
lain in  a  strange,  dull  way,  and  then  forgets  him  for  a  minute 
or  more.  Baths  are  not  to  be  had  in  Gueldersdorp  in  these 
days,  and  though  it  is  not  Sunday,  when  bathing  in  the  river 
becomes  a  possibility,  the  Chaplain  observes  that  the  Doctor's 
thick,  close-cropped  black  hair  is  wet,  and  that  broad  streaks 


390  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

of  shining  moisture  are  upon  his  pale,  square  face,  and  that  he 
breathes  as  though  he  had  been  running.  But  perhaps  he  has 
been  sluicing  his  head  in  the  washstand  basin,  thinks  the  Chap- 
lain. No;  the  basin  has  not.  recently  been  used.  And  then  it 
occurs  to  Julius,  but  not  until  he  has  noticed  the  starting  veins, 
and  corded  muscles  on  the  backs  of  the  hands  that  are  clenched 
upon  the  jacket,  that  Saxham  is  suffering. 

"  I  always  said  he  felt  a  great  deal  more  than  he  permitted 
himself  to  show,"  reflects  the  man  of  Religion  looking  at  the 
man  of  Medicine.  "  And  the  absence  of  belief  in  Divine 
Redemption  and  a  Future  State  must  terribly  intensify  the 
pain  of  a  bereavement.  If  I  only  knew  how  to  comfort  him!  " 
And  all  he  can  do  is  to  ask,  still  in  that  tone  of  sympathy, 
when  the  Funeral  is  to  be. 

"  Perhaps  about  the  midday  coffee-drinking,"  says  Saxham 
heavily,  "  they  would  scrape  a  hole  and  dump  him  in.  But 
they're  not  over  fond  of  risks,  and  they  would  probably  leave 
him  where  he  is  till  nightfall." 

Julius  Fraithorn  longs,  more  than  ever,  that  eloquence  and 
inspiration  were  his  to  employ  in  the  healing  of  the  man  who 
has  raised  himself  almost  from  the  dead.  But  he  can  only 
falter  something  about  the  Inscrutable  designs  of  Providence, 
and  not  a  sparrow  falling  to  the  ground  unnoticed.  And  he 
expresses,  somewhat  tritely,  the  hope  that  Saxham's  friend  was 
prepared  to  meet  his  end. 

"  I  don't  exactly  suppose  he  expected  it.  He  had  a  right 
to  count  upon  pulling  off  the  match,"  says  Saxham,  with  a 
dreary  shadow  of  a  grin,  "because  a  better  man  behind  a  gun 
than  Father  Noah  you.  wouldn't  easily  meet.  And  Boers  are 
fine  shots,  as  a  rule." 

"  Boers.  ...  A  Boer.  ...  I  thought  you  told  me  you  had 
lost  a  friend  ?  "  Mild  astonishment  is  written  on  the  Chap- 
lain's face.  And  Saxham  looks  up,  and  the  other  sees  that  his 
eyeballs  are  heavily  injected  with  blood,  and  that  the  vivid 
blue  of  their  irises  has  strangely  faded. 

"  I  gave  him  every  opportunity  to  be  my  friend,"  says  the 
dull  voice  heavily,  "  by  moving  out  from  cover,  even  by  stand- 
ing up.  But  no  good.  He  suspected  a  ruse,  and  it  worried 
him.  Then  he  climbed  a  tree,  emptied  his  bandolier  at  me 
from  a  perch  of  vantage  among  the  branches,  and  had  started 
to  refill  it  from  a  fresh  package,  when  I  got  the  chance,  and 
brought  him  down  spreadeagle.  And  exit  Father  Noah." 

The    Chaplain    comprehends    fully    now,    turns    pale,  and 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  397 

shudders.  A  blue  line  marks  itself  about  his  mouth;  he  is 
conscious  of  a  qualm  of  positive  nausea  as  he  says: 

"  You — you  don't  mean  you  have  been  talking  of  a  man 
you  have  shot?" 

"  Just  so,"  assents  Saxham,  and  the  sentence  that  follows 
is  not  uttered  aloud.  "  And  I  wish  with  all  my  soul  that  the 
man  had  shot  me!  " 

"  And  this  is  War,"  says  Julius  Fraithorn.  He  pulls  out 
his  handkerchief  and  wipes  his  damp  forehead  and  the  beady 
blue  lines  about  his  mouth,  and  the  crack  and  rattle  of  rifle- 
fire  sweeping  over  the  veld  and  through  the  town,  and  the 
ping,  ping,  ping  of  Mauser  bullets  flattening  on  the  iron  gutter- 
pipe  and  the  corrugated  iron  of  the  roof  above  them  seem  to 
answer  "  Certainly,  War." 

"  Why,  you  look  sick,  man,"  says  Saxham  the  surgeon, 
whose  keen  professional  eye  has  not  missed  the  Chaplain's 
pallor,  though  the  other  Saxham  is  still  dazed  and  blind,  and 
stupefied  by  the  blow  that  has  been  dealt  him  by  Lady  Hannah's 
gold  fountain-pen.  He  leans  forward,  and  lightly  touches  one 
of  the  Chaplain's  thin  wrists,  suspecting  him  of  a  touch  of 
fever  or  town-water  dysentery.  But  Julius  jerks  the  wrist 
away. 

"  I  am  perfectly  well.  It  was — the  way  in  which  you 
spoke  just  now  that  rather — rather " 

"  Revolted  you,  eh  ? "  says  Saxham,  again  with  the  dim 
shadow  of  a  smile.  "  Revealed  me  as  a  brute  and  a  savage. 
Well,  and  why  not,  if  I  choose  to  be  one  or  the  other,  or 
both?  You  Churchmen  believe  in  the  power  of  choice,  don't 
you?  Prove  to  a  man  that  there  is  something  worth  having 
in  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  he  burrows  like  a  mole  and  gets  it. 
Let  him  once  see  utility  in  flying,  give  him  time  and  oppor- 
tunity, and  he  will  fly.  So  if  it  is  to  his  interests  to  be  clean- 
lived,  high-minded,  exemplary,  he  will  be  all  these  things  to 
admiration.  Or,  if  he  should  happen  to  have  lost  the  gout 
for  virtue,  if  he  determines  that  Evil  shall  be  his  good,  he  will 
make  it  so."  He  smiled  dourly.  "  Deprive  him  of  a  solid 
reason  for  living,  he  can  die.  Hold  up  before  his  dying  eyes 
the  prospect  of  continued  existence  under  hopeful  conditions, 
he  takes  up  his  bed  and  walks,  like  the  moribund  paralytic  in 
the  Gospel  you  preach.  You're  a  living  proof  of  the  human 
power  of  working  miracles.  .  .  .  Granted  I  cut  away  a  tumour 
from  under  your  breast-bone  more  skilfully  than  a  certain  per- 
centage of  surgeons  could  have  done  it.  But  what  brought 


398  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

you  safely  through  the  operation,  healed  your  wound  by  the 
first  intention,  and  set  you  on  your  legs  again?  I'll  trouble 
you  to  tell  me." 

"  The  mercy  and  the  grace  of  God,"  says  the  Chaplain, 
"  manifested  in  His  unworthy  servant  through  your  science 
and  your  skill." 

"  You  employ  the  technical  terminology  of  your  profession," 
Saxham  says,  with  a  shrug. 

The  blank  stare  and  the  congested  redness  have  gone  out 
of  his  eyes,  and  his  voice  is  less  dull  and  toneless.  He  is 
coming  back  to  his  outward  self  again,  even  while  the  inner 
man  lies  mangled  and  bleeding,  crushed  by  that  tremendous 
broadsword  stroke  of  Fate  that  has  been  dealt  him  by  the 
gold  pen  of  Lady  Hannah,  and  he  is  ready  enough  to  argue 
with  the  Chaplain.  He  gets  off  the  bed  and  slips  on  his 
jacket,  takes  a  turn  or  two  across  the  narrow  floor-space,  then 
leans  against  the  distempered  wall  beside  the  window,  puffing 
at  his  jetty  clay,  his  muscular  arms  folded  upon -his  great  chest, 
his  powerful  shoulders  bowed,  his  square,  black  head  thrust 
forward,  and  his  blue  eyes  coolly  studying  Julius  as  he  talks. 

"  Let  me — without  rubbing  your  cloth  the  wrong  way — 
put  the  case  in  mine.  Your  belief  in  a  Power  that  my  reason 
tells  me  is  non-existent  stimulated  your  nervous  centres,  roused 
and  sustained  in  you  the  determination  without  which  my 
science  and  my  skill — and  I  do  not  underestimate  them,  I 
assure  you — would  have  availed  you  nothing.  You  said  to 
yourself,  '  If  God  will  it,  I  shall  get  over  this,'  and  because  you 
willed  it,  it  was  so.  Were  I  a  drunkard,  an  outcast,  the  very 
refuse  of  humanity,  tainted  with  vice  to  the  very  centre  of  my 
being,  I  have  but  to  will  to  be  sober  and  live  decently,  and 
while  I  continue  to  will  it,  I  shall  be  what.  I  desire  to  be." 

Saxham's  eyes  hold  Julius's,  and  challenge  them.  But  no 
'shadow  of  a  Dop  Doctor  who  once  reeled  the  streets  of 
Gueldersdorp  rises  from  those  clear  brown  depths  as  the  speaker 
ends,  "  Don't  underestimate  the  power  of  the  Human  Will, 
Fraithorn,  for  it  can  remove  mountains,  and  raise  the  living 
dead." 

"  Nor  do  you  venture  to  deny  the  Power  of  the  Almighty 
Hand,  Saxham,"  answers  the  thin,  sweet  voice  of  the  Church- 
man ;  "  because  It  strewed  the  myriad  worlds  in  the  Dust,  of 
The  Infinite,  and  set  the  jewelled  feathers  in  the  butter- 
fly's wing,  and  forged  the  very  intellect  whose  power  you  mis- 
use in  uttering  the  boast  that  denies  It.  Think  again.  Can 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  399 

you  assure  me  with  truth  that  you  have  never,  in  the  stress  of 
some  great  mental  or  physical  crisis,  cried  to  Heaven  for  help 
when  the  struggle  was  at  its  worst?  Think  again,  Saxham." 

But  Saxham  obstinately  shakes  his  head,  still  smiling.  As 
he  stands  there  transfigured  by  the  dark,  fierce  spirit  that  has 
come  upon  him  and  possessed  him,  there  is  something  about 
the  hulking  man  with  the  square,  black  head  and  the  powerful 
frame  that  breathes  of  that  superb  and  terrible  Prince  of  the 
Heavenly  Hierarchy  who  fell  through  a  kindred  sin,  and  the 
priest  in  Julius  shudders,  recognizing  the  tremendous  power 
of  such  a  nature  as  this,  whether  turned  towards  Evil  or  bent 
to  achieve  Good.  The  while,  in  letters  of  delicate,  keen  flame, 
the  denier  sees  written  on  the  tables  of  his  inward  consciousness 
the  utterance  that  once  broke  from  him,  as,  racked  and  tortured 
in  body  and  in  soul,  he  wrestled  with  his  Devil  on  that  un- 
forgettable night. 

"  O  God !  if  indeed  Thou  Art,  and  I  must  perforce  return 
to  live  the  life  of  a  man  amongst  men,  help  me  to  burst  the 
chains  that  fetter  me.  Help  me — oh,  help  me  to  be  free !  " 

And  in  his  heart  he  knows  that  the  desperate  prayer  has 
been  granted.  But  in  this  new-born,  curious  mood  of  his  he 
will  not  yield,  but  combats  his  own  innermost  conviction,  be- 
ing, in  a  strange,  perverted  way,  even  prouder  of  his  Owen 
Saxham  who  has  gone  down  of  his  own  choice  to  the  muddiest 
depths  of  moral  and  physical  decadence,  and  come  up  of  the 
strength  of  his  own  Will  from  among  the  hideous  things  that 
hang  suspended  and  drifting  in  the  primeval  sludge,  than  he 
ever  was  of  the  man  before  his  fall.  His  is  a  combative  nature, 
and  the  great  blow  he  has  sustained  this  day  in  the  wreck  and 
ruin  of  his  raft  of  Hope  has  left  him  quivering  to  the  centre 
of  his  being  with  resentment  that  strikes  back. 

"  Think  again  yourself.  Ask  yourself  whether  the  Deity 
who  creates,  preserves,  blesses,  punishes,  slays,  and  raises  up, 
is  the  outcome  of  man's  need  of  such  a  Being,  or  His  own| 
desire  of  Himself.  And  which  conception  is  the  greater — that 
the  God  in  whom  you  and  those  of  your  cloth,  and  the  mil- 
lions of  believers  that  hang  upon  it,  should  have  commanded, 
"  Let  the  universe  exist,"  and  have  been  obeyed,  or  that  the 
stupendous  pigmy  MAN  should  have  dared  to  say,  '  Let  there 
be  God,'  and  so  created  Him?  " 

He  laughs  jarringly  as  he  knocks  the  ashes  out  of  the  black- 
ened clay  upon  the  corner  of  the  window-ledge. 

"  Give  credit  to  the  human  imagination  and  the  human  will 


400  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

for  inventing  a  personage  so  useful  to  the  Christian  Churches 
as  the  Devil.  For  as  in  the  beginning  it  was  necessary  for 
Man  to  build  up  Heaven  and  set  his  God  therein,  so,  to  throw 
His  unimaginable  purity  and  inconceivable  perfection  into  yet 
more  glorious  relief,  it  was  required  that  Hell  should  be  delved 
out  and  the  objective  personality  of  Satan  conceived  and  ken- 
nelled there,  and  given  just  sufficient  power  to  pay  the  marplot 
where  the  Divine  plans  are  concerned,  and  just  enough  malev- 
olence to  find  amusement  in  the  occupation.  What  should 
we  do,  where  should  we  be,  without  our  Satanic  souffre-doleur 
— our  horned  scapegoat,  our  black  puppet,  without  whose  sug- 
gestions we  should  never  have  erred,  whose  wooden  head  we 
bang  when  things  go  wrong  with  us,"  says  Saxham  bitterly. 
He  reaches  out  a  hand  for  the  tobacco-pouch  and  his  glance 
falls  upon  the  day's  issue  of  the  Siege  Gazette  lying  on  the  par- 
quet linoleum,  where  it  has  fallen  from  his  hand  a  little  while 
ago.  He  stoops  and  picks  it  up,  and  offers  it  to  Julius. 

"  There's  the  announcement  of  an  engagement  here " 

He  smooths  the  crumpled  sheet,  holds  it  under  the  Chaplain's 
eye,  and  points  to  the  two  last  paragraphs  of  the  "  Social  Jot- 
tings "  column.  "  Take  it  as  an  instance.  .  .  .  Did  Heaven 
play  the  matchmaker  here,  or  has  Hell  had  a  finger  in  the 
matrimonial  pie?  Or  has  the  blind  and  crazy  chance  that 
governs  this  desolate  world  for  me  tipped  the  balance  in  favour 
of  one  young  rake,  who  may  be  saved  and  purified  and  renewed 
by  such  a  marriage,  while  his  elder  in  iniquity  is  doomed  to  be 
wrecked  upon  it,  ruined  by  it,  destroyed  through  it,  damned 
socially  and  morally  because  of  it  .  .  ." 

The  fierce  words  break  from  Saxham  against  his  will.  He 
resents  the  betrayal  of  his  own  confidence  savagely,  even  as 
he  utters  them.  But  they  are  spoken,  beyond  recall.  And 
the  effect  of  the  paragraph  upon  the  Chaplain  is  remarkable. 
His  meek,  luminous  brown  eyes  blaze  with  indignation.  He 
is  aflame,  from  the  edge  of  his  collar — a  patent  clerical  guillo- 
tine of  washable  xylonite,  purchased  at  a  famous  travellers' 
emporium  in  the  Strand — to  the  thin,  silky  rings  of  dark  hair 
that  are  wearing  from  his  high,  pale  temples.  He  says,  and 
stutters  angrily  in  saying: 

"  This  is  a  lie — a  monstrous  misstatement  which  shall  be 
withdrawn  to-morrow!  " 

"  How  do  you  know  that?  " 

The  Chaplain  crushes  the  Siege  Gazette  into  a  ball,  pitches 
it  into  a  corner  of  the  room,  grabs  his  Field-Service  cap  and 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  401 

the  cane  he  carries  in  lieu  of  the  carbine  or  rifle,  without  which 
the  male  laity  of  Gueldersdorp  and  a  good  many  of  the  women 
do  not  stir  abroad,  and  makes  a  stride  for  the  door.  He  meets 
there  Saxham,  whose  square  face  and  powerful  figure  bar  his 
flaming  exit. 

"  It  is  enough  that  I  do  know  it.     Kindly  allow  me  to  pass." 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  ?  " 

The  Chaplain  is  plainly  uncertain,  as  he  wrestles  with  the 
clerical  guillotine  of  washable  xylonite,  and  stammers  some- 
thing about  unwarrantable  liberty  and  a  lady's  reputation! 
And  Saxham  recognizes  that  Saxham  is  not  the  only  sufferer 
from  the  festering  smart  of  jealousy,  and  that  the  vivid  red- 
and-white  carnation-tinted  beauty  of  the  delicate  face  in  its 
setting  of  red-brown  hair  has  grievously  disturbed,  if  it  has 
not  altogether  dissipated,  the  pale  young  Anglican's  views  of 
the  celibate  life. 

Agnostic  and  Churchman,  denier  and  believer,  have  split  on 
the  same  amatory  rock.  The  knowledge  breathes  no  sympathy 
in  the  Dop  Doctor. 

He  observes  the  Chaplain's  face,  dispassionately  and  yet  in- 
tently, as  in  the  old  Hospital  days  he  might  have  studied  the 
expression  of  a  monkey  or  a  guinea-pig,  or  other  organism  upon 
which  he  was  experimenting  with  some  new  drug.  And  the 
Reverend  Julius  demands,  with  resentful  acerbity: 

"  What  are  you  staring  at?  Do  you  imagine  that  the  colour 
of  my  cloth  debars  me  from — from  taking  the  part  of  a  lady 
whose  name  has  been  dragged  before  the  public?  I  shall  call 
at  the  office  where  this  rag  is  published,  and  insist  upon  a  con- 
tradiction of  this — this  canard!" 

"Don't  you  know  who  edits  the  rag?"  asks  Saxham  rasp- 
ingly.  "  Do  you  suppose  that  any  unauthorized  announce- 
ment or  statement  that  has  not  been  officially  corroborated 
would  be  allowed  to  pass?  The  paragraph  comes  from  an 
authoritative  source,  you  may  be  sure ! " 

"  I  am  in  a  position  to  disprove  it,  from  whatever  source  it 
comes!"  cried  the  Chaplain  hotly.  "He  shall  contradict  it 
himself,  if  there  is  necessity.  •  He  may  be  a  prodigal  and  a 
viveur — he  bears  that  reputation — but  at  least  he  is  not  a  liar 
and  a  scoundrel." 

"Who?"  Saxham's  heart  is  drubbing  furiously.  A  cool, 
vivifying  liquid  like  ether  seems  to  have  passed  into  his  blood. 
His  quiet,  set,  determined  face  and  masterful,  observant  eyes 
oppose  the  Chaplain's  heat  and  indignation,  as  if  these  were 


402  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

waves  of  boiling  lava  beating  on  a  cliff  of  Titanic  rock.  "  Who 
is  not  a  liar  and  a  scoundrel?  " 

"  I  speak  of  Lord  Beauvaj'se,"  says  the  Reverend  Julius 
Fraithorn  in  the  high-pitched  voice  that  shakes  with  rage. 
"  He  is  a  married  man,  Saxham ;  I  have  incontrovertible  testi- 
mony to  prove  it.  He  gave  his  name  to  the  woman  who  was 
his  mistress  a  week  before  he  sailed  for  Cape  Town.  He " 

There  is  a  strange  rattling  noise  in  the  throat  of  the  man 
who  hears.  Julius  looks  at  him,  and  his  own  heat  and  fury 
appear,  even  to  himself,  as  impotent  and  ridiculous  as  the 
anger  of  a  child.  If  just  before  it  had  seemed  to  him  that 
he  heard  the  voice  of  mankind's  arch-enemy  speaking  with 
Saxham's  mouth,  he  discerns  at  this  moment,  reflected  in  Sax- 
ham's,  the  face  of  the  primal  murderer.  And  being,  as  well 
as  a  sincere  and  simple-hearted  clergyman,  something  of  a 
weakling,  he  is  shocked  to  silence. 


XLVI 

AN  instant,  and  Saxham's  own  face  looks  calmly  at  the  dazed 
Chaplain,  and  the  curt,  brusque  voice  demands: 

"What  is  this  incontrovertible  testimony?"  • 

"  A  letter,"  says  Julius  breathlessly,  "  from  a  person  who 
saw  the  entry  of  the  marriage  at  the  Registrar's  office  where 
it  took  place." 

"  Is  anyone  else  in  possession  of  this  information  ?  " 

"  With  the  exception  of  the  Registrar  and  the  witnesses 
of  the  marriage,  up  to  the  middle  of  last  September,  when  the 
letter  was  written,  nothing  had  leaked  out.  I  received  the 
communication  by  the  last  mail  from  England  that  was  de- 
livered at  the  Hospital  before  I  underwent  the  operation." 

"  That  was  the  last  mail  that  got  through.  Who  was  your 
correspondent?  " 

"  One  of  the  senior  officiating  priests  of  St.  Margaret's, 
Cavendish  Street,  the  London  church  where  I  did  duty  as 
junior  curate."  • 

"  Have  you  kept  the  letter?  " 

"  It  is  in  my  desk  at  my  hotel,  with  some  other  correspond- 
ence of  Father  Tatham's.  You  may  see  it  if  you  wish." 

"  I  will  see  it.  In  the  meanwhile,  let  me  have  the  gist  of  it. 

This  clergyman — happening  to  visit  a  Registrar's  office 

Where  was  the  office?  " 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  403 

"At  Cookham-on-Thames,  where  Father  Tatham  has  es- 
tablished a  Holiday  Rest  Home  for  the  benefit  of  the  London 
working  lads,"  the  Chaplain  explains.  He  is  sitting  on  the  end 
of  the  bed,  weak  and  worn  and  exhausted  with  the  emotions 
that  have  torn  him  in  the  last  half-hour.  Beads  of  perspira- 
tion thickly  stud  the  high  temples,  out  of  which  the  angry 
blood  has  sunk;  his  cheeks  are  pallid  and  hollow.  His  eyes 
have  lost  their  fire;  his  muscles  are  flaccidly  relaxed;  his  slop- 
ing shoulders  stoop;  his  long,  limp  hands  hang  nervelessly  at 
his  sides. 

"  One  moment."  Saxham  glances  at  the  gold  chronometer 
the  staff  of  St.  Stephen's  clubbed  to  present  him  with  years  ago. 
It  is  rather  typical  of  the  man  that,  even  when  under  stress 
of  his  heroic  thirst  he  had  pawned  the  watch  for  money  where- 
with to  buy  whisky,  he  should  have  only  borrowed  upon  it 
such  small  sums  as  are  easily  repaid.  He  has  yet  another  five 
minutes  to  bestow  in  listening  to  the  Chaplain's  story,  yet  even 
as  he  returns  the  chronometer  to  its  pocket,  his  quick  ear 
catches  the  frou-frou  of  feminine  petticoats  outside  the  door. 
He  opens  it,  frowning.  A  nurse  is  standing  there  with  a  sum- 
mons in  her  face.  She  gives  the  doctor  her  low-toned  message, 
receives  a  reply,  and  rustles  down  the  corridor  between  the 
long  lines  of  pallets  as  Saxham  draws  back  his  head  and  shuts 
the  door,  and,  setting  his  great  shoulders  against  it,  and  facing 
Julius,  orders: 

"Goon!" 

Julius  goes  on: 

"At  Underose  Cottage — a  pretty  place  of  the  toy-residence 
description,  standing  in  charming  gardens  not  far  from  the 
Home  I  speak  of,  lived  a  lady — an  actress  very  popular  in 
Musical  Comedy — who  was  known  to  be  the  mistress  of  Lord 
Beauvayse.  I  need  hardly  tell  you  the  Father  touched  on  the 
unpleasant  features  of  the  story  as  delicately  as  possible " 

"Without  doubt.  But — get  on  a  little  quicker,"  says  Sax- 
ham  grimly,  jerking  his  head  towards  the  door.  "  For  I  am 
wanted.  And  don't  speak  loud,  for  there  are  people  on  the 
other  side  of  the  door.  With  regard  to  this  lady?" 

"  With  all  her  moral  laxities,"  goes  on  Julius,  "  Miss  Lessie 
Lavigne " 

"  Ah,  I  know  the  name,"  says  Saxham  sharply.  "  On  with 
you  to  the  end.  'With  all  her  moral  laxities " 

"  Miss  Lessie  Lavigne  is  a  generous,  kindly,  charitable  young 
woman,"  goes  on  Julius,  "And  the  Home  of  Rest  has  bene- 


404  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

fited  largely  by  her  purse.  She  is  known  to  the  Matron,  and 
Father  Tatham — having  occasion  to  visit  the  Registrar's  office 
at  Cookham  on  the  2gth  of  last  June,  for  the  purpose  of  look- 
ing up  the  books,  with  the  Registrar's  consent,  and  satisfying 
himself  of  the  existence  of  the  entry  regarding  a  marriage  be- 
tween one  of  our  young  fellows  then  at  the  Home  and  a  girl 
he  had  foolishly  married  when  on  a  hopping  excursion  in  the 
autumn  of  the  previous  year — Father  Tatham  encountered  •• 
Miss  Lavigne — or  Lady  Beauvayse,  to  give  her  her  proper 
title " 

"In  the  Registrar's  office?" 

"  In  the  act  of  quitting  the  Registrar's  outer  office,"  says 
the  burnt-out  Julius  in  a  weary  voice,  "  in  the  company  of 
Lord  Beauvayse,  and  followed  by  two  persons  who  were  prob- 
ably their  witnesses;  for  when  the  Father  entered  the  inner 
office  the  register  was  lying  open  on  the  table,  the  entry  of  the 
marriage  still  wet  upon  the  page." 

"  And  your  religious  correspondent  pried  first,"  says  Sax- 
ham,  with  savage  irony,  "  and  afterwards  tattled  ?  " 

"And  afterwards,  seeing  in  the  Times  that  Lord  Beauvayse 
was  under  orders  from  South  Africa,  mentioned  his  accidental 
discovery  when  writing  to  me,"  says  Julius  Fraithorn  wearily. 

"That  will  do.  When  can  I  see  the  letter  at  your  hotel? 
The  sooner  the  better,"  says  Saxham,  with  a  curious  smile, 
"  for  all  purposes.  Can  you  walk  there  with  me  now  ?  Very 
well  " — as  Julius  assents — "  that  is  arranged,  then." 

"  What  is  to  be  done,  Saxham  ?  "  Julius  stumbles  up.  The 
fires  that  burned  in  him  a  few  moments  ago  are  quenched ;  his 
slack  hand  trembles  irresolutely  at  his  beautiful  weak  mouth, 
and  his  deerlike  eyes  waver. 

"  I  advise  you,"  says  Saxham,  "  to  leave  the  doing  of  what 
is  to  be  done  to  me."  His  own  blue  eyes  have  so  strange  a 
flare  in  .them,  and  his  heavy  form  seems  so  alive  and  instinct 
with  threatening  and  dangerous  possibilities,  that  Julius 
falters: 

"  You  believe  Lord  Beauvayse  has  been  a  party  to — has  wil- 
fully compromised  Miss  Mildare?  You — you  mean  to  re- 
monstrate with  him?  Do  you — do  you  think  that  he  will 
listen  to  a  remonstrance?" 

"  He  will  find  it  best  in  this  instance,"  says  Saxham  dourly. 

"  Do  not — do  not  be  tempted  to  use  any  violence,  Saxham," 
urges  the  Chaplain  nervously,  looking  at  the  tense  muscles  of 
the  grim,  square  face  and  the  salient  right  hand  that  hovers 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  405 

near  the  butt  of  the  Doctor's  revolver.  "  For  your  own  sake 
as  much  as  for  his." 

Saxham's  laugh  is  ugly  to  hear. 

"  Do  you  think  that  Lord  Beauvayse  would  wind  up  as  top 
dog  if  it  came  to  a  struggle  between  us?  " 

"  It  must  not  come  to  a  struggle,  Saxham,"  says  the  Chap- 
lain, very  pale.  "  We — we  are  under  Martial  Law.  He  is 
your  superior  officer."  (Saxham,  Attached  Medical  Staff, 
holds  the  honourary  rank  of  Lieutenant  in  Her  Majesty's 
Army.)  "Remember,  if  Carslow — the  man  who  killed 
Vickers,  of  the  Pittsburg  Trumpeter" — he  refers  to  a  grim 
tragedy  of  the  beginning  of  the  siege — "  had  not  been  medi- 
cally certified  insane,  they  would  have  taken  him  out  and  shot 
him." 

Saxham  shrugs  his  massive  shoulders,  and  with  the  utter 
unmelodiousness  that  characterizes  the  performance  of  a  man 
devoid  of  a  musical  ear,  whistles  a  fragment  of  a  little  tune. 
It  is  often  on  the  lips  of  another  man,  and  the  Doctor  has 
picked  it  up  unconsciously,  with  one  or  two  other  characteristic 
habits  and  phrases,  and  has  fallen  into  the  habit  of  whistling 
it  as  he  goes  doggedly,  unwearyingly,  upon  his  ever-widening 
round  of  daily  duties.  It.  helps  him,  perhaps,  though  it  gets 
upon  the  nerves  of  other  people,  making  the  younger  nurses, 
not  unmindful  of  his  arbitrary  action  in  the  matter  of  the 
violet  powder,  want  to  shriek. 

"  The  Military  Executive  would  be  perfectly  welcome  to 
take  me  out  and  shoot  me,  if  first  I  might  be  permitted  to 
look  in  at  the  Staff  Bomb-proof  South,  and  render  Society  the 
distinguished  service  of  ridding  it  of  Lord  Beauvayse.  Who's 
there?" 

Saxham  reopens  the  door,  at  which  the  nurse,  now  returned, 
has  knocked.  A  tired  but  cheerful-faced  young  woman,  in  an 
unstarched  cap  and  apron  and  rumpled  gown  of  galatea  cotton- 
twill,  informs  the  Doctor  that  they  have  telephoned  up  from 
Staff  Bomb-proof  South  Lines,  and  that  the  password  for  the 
day  is  "  Honour." 

"You  are  going  to  him  now?"  asks  the  Chaplain  anxiously 
and  apprehensively. 

"  Oddly  enough,  I  have  been  sent  for  to  attend  to  a  shell 
casualty,"  says  Saxham,  picking  up  and  putting  on  his  Service 
felt,  and  moving  to  take  down  the  canvas  wallet  that  is  his 
inseparable  companion  from  the  hook  whence  it  hangs.  "  Or, 
rather,  Taggart  was,  and  as  he  has  thirty  diphtheria  cases  for 


4o6  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

tracheotomy  at  the  Children's  Hospital,  and  as  McFadyen's 
hands  are  full  at  the  Refugees'  Infirmary,  the  Major  asks  if 
I  will  take  the  duty.  It's  an  order,  I  suppose,  couched  in  a 
civil  way." 

He  swings  the  heavy  wallet  over  his  shoulders,  and  picks 
up  his  worn  hunting-crop. 

"  And  so,  let's  be  moving,"  he  says,  his  hand  upon  the  door- 
knob. "  Your  hotel  is  on  my  way.  I  may  need  that  letter,  or 
I  may  not.  And  in  any  case  I  prefer  to  have  seen  it  before  I 
meet  the  man." 

"  One  moment."  The  Chaplain  speaks  with  a  strained  look 
of  anxiety,  squeezing  a  damp  white  handkerchief  into  a  ball 
between  his  palms.  "  You  have  taken  upon  yourself  the  duty 
of  bringing  Lord  Beauvayse  to  book  over  this — very  painful 
matter.  ...  I  should  like  ...  I  should  wish  you  to  leave 
the  task  of  enlightening  Miss  Mildare  to  me." 

"To  you.     And  why?" 

Saxham  waits  for  the  answer,  a  heavy  figure  filling  up  the 
doorway,  scanning  the  matting  with  eyes  that  suddenly  avoid 
the  Chaplain's  face. 

"  Because  I — because  in  inflicting  upon  her  what  must  neces- 
sarily be  a — a  painful  humiliation  " — the  Rev.  Julius  clears 
his  throat,  and  laboriously  rolls  the  damp  handkerchief-ball 
into  a  sausage — "  I  wish  to  convince  Miss  Mildare  that  my 
respect  and  my — esteem  for  her  have — not  diminished." 

"  And  how  do  you  propose  to  drive  this  conviction  home  ?  " 

The  Reverend  Julius  flushes  to  the  ear-tips.  The  coldness 
of  the  questioning  voice  gives  him  a  nervous  shudder.  He  says 
with  an  effort,  looking  at  the  thick  white,  black-fringed  lids 
that  hide  the  Doctor's  queer  blue  eyes: 

"  By  offering  Miss  Mildare  the  honourable  protection  of  my 
name.  My  views,  as  regarding  the  celibacy  incumbent  upon 
the  anointed  servant  of  the  Altar,  have,  since  I  knew  her,  un- 
dergone a — a  change.  .  .  .  And  it.  occurs  to  me,  when  she  has 
got  over  the  first  shock  of  hearing  that  she  has*  been  deceived 
and  played  with  by  a  person  of  Lord  Beauvaysc's  lack  of  prin- 
ciple  » 

"  That  she  may  be  induced  to  look  with  favour  on  the  par- 
son's proposal?"  comments  Saxham  with  an  indifference  to  the 
feelings  of  the  person  he  addresses  that  is  positively  savage. 
The  raucous  tones  flay  Julius's  sensitive  ears,  the  terrible  blue 
eyes  blaze  upon  him,  scorch  him.  He  falters: 

"  I — I  trust  my  purpose  is  pure  from,  vulgar  self-seeking  ?     I 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  407 

hope  my  attitude  towards  Miss  Mildare  is  not  unchivalrous — 
or  ungenerous? " 

"  In  manipulating  her  disadvantage  to  serve  your  own  in- 
terests," says  the  terrible  voice,  "  you  would  undoubtedly  be 
playing  a  very  low-down  game." 

Julius  laughs,  shortly  and  huffily. 

"A  low-down  game!  .  .  .  Ha,  ha,  ha!  You  don't  mince 
3Tour  words,  Doctor!  " 

"  I  can  phrase  my  opinion  even  more  plainly,  if  you  desire 
it,"  returns  Saxham  brutally.  "  To  bespatter  a  rival  for  the 
gaining  of  an  advantage  by  contrast  is  a  Yahoo's  trick  to  which 
no  decent  gentleman  would  stoop." 

"  At  a  pinch,"  retorts  the  Chaplain,  stung  to  the  point  of 
being  sarcastic,  "  your  '  decent  gentleman  '  would  be  likely  to 
remember  the  old  adage,  '  All's  fair  in  Love  and '  " 

"  Exactly.  All  is  fair,"  returns  Saxham,  squaring  his  dogged 
jaws  at  the  other,  and  folding  his  great  arms  upon  his  deep 
wide  chest.  "  And  all  shall  be,  please  to  understand  it.  It 
is,  unfortunately,  necessary  that  Miss  Mildare  should  be  un- 
deceived as  regards  Lord  Beauvayse.  But  the  painful  duty  of 
opening  her  eyes  will  be  undertaken  by  that  " — the  break  be- 
fore the  designation  is  scathingly  contemptuous — "  by  that — 
distinguished  nobleman  himself,  and  by  no  other." 

"  How  can  you  compel  the  man  to  give  himself  away?"  de- 
mands the  Reverend  Julius  incredulously.  Saxham  answers, 
mechanically  opening  and  closing  his  small,  muscular  surgeon's 
hand,  and  watching  the  flexions  and  extensions  of  the  supple 
fingers  with  an  ugly  kind  of  interest: 

"  I  shall  compel  him  to.  How  doesn't  concern  you  at  the 
moment.  What  matters  is — your  parole  of  honour  that  you 
will  never  by  word,  or  deed,  or  sign  disclose  to  Miss  Mildare 
that  Lord  Beauvayse  was  not,  when  he  engaged  himself  to 
marry  her,  in  a  position  to  fulfil  his  matrimonal  proposals. 
Short  of  betraying  your  rival,  you  are  at  liberty  to  further 
your  own  views  as  may  seem  good  to  you.  The  plan  of  cam- 
paign that  I,  in  your  place,  should  choose  might  not  find 
favour  in  your  eyes.  .  .  ."  His  look  bears  upon  the  younger 
man  with  intolerable  weight,  his  heavily-shouldered  figure 
seems  to  swell  and  fill  the  room.  Julius  is  clearly  conscious 
of  hating  his  saviour,  and  the  consciousness  is  acid  on  his  palate 
as  he  asks,  with  a  wry  smile: 

"  What  would  your  plan  be  if  you  were  in  my  place  ?  " 

And  gets  this  answer: 


4o8  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"  To  praise  where  a  rival  was  worthy  of  praise ;  to  be  silent 
where  it  would  be  easy  to  depreciate;  to  win  her  from  him, 
not  because  of  my  own  greater  worth,  but  in  spite  of  the  worst 
she  could  know  of  me.  That  would,  in  my  opinion,  be  a  con- 
quest worthy  of  a  man." 

The  pupils  of  the  speaker's  flaming  blue  eyes  have  dwindled 
to  mere  pin-points,  a  rush  of  blood  has  darkened  the  square  pale 
face,  to  sink  away  again  and  leave  it  opaquely  colourless,  as 
Saxham  says  with  cool  distinctness: 

"  And  now,  before  we  leave  this  room,  I  must  trouble  you 
for  that  promise — oath,  if  you  feel  it  would  be  more  in  your 
line  of  business.  I  don't  possess  a  copy  of  the  Scripture,  but 
I  think  that  is  a  Crucifix  you  wear  upon  your  watchchain  ?  " 

It  is.  And  when  the  Reverend  Julius  has  kissed  the  sacred 
symbol  with  shaking  lips,  and  taken  the  oath  as  Saxham  dic- 
tates, his  heart  tattooing  furiously  under  the  baggy  khaki 
jacket,  and  an  angry  pulse  beating  in  his  thin  cheek,  Saxham 
adds,  with  the  flickering  shadow  of  a  smile,  as  he  opens  the 
door,  and  signs  to  the  Chaplain  to  pass  out  before  him : 

"  You  perceive  I  turn  the  weapons  of  your  profession  against 
you.  Exactly  as — replying  to  your  question  of  a  moment  back 
with  regard  to  compelling — exactly  as  I  intend  to  do  in  the 
case  of  Lord  Beauvayse !  " 

He  motions  to  the  other  to  pass  out  before  him,  and  locks 
the  door  upon  his  stuffy  little  sanctum  with  its  shelves  piled 
with  a  heterogeneous  confusion  of  tubes  and  bottles,  books 
and  instruments,  specimens  of  foodstuffs  under  the  process  of 
analysis  for  values,  and  carefully-sealed  watchglasses  contain- 
ing choice  cultures  of  deadly  microbes  in  boullion,  before  he 
leads  his  way  down  the  long  corridor  where  narrow  pallets, 
upon  which  sick  men  and  boys  are  stretched,  range  along  the 
walls  upon  either  hand,  and  the  air  is  heavy  with  the  taint 
of  suppurating  wounds,  and  the  hot,  sticky  breath  of  fever  and 
malaria. 

He  walks  quickly,  his  keen  blue  eyes  glancing  right  and  left 
with  the  effect  of  carelessness,  yet  missing  nothing.  He  stops, 
and  loosens  the  bandage, ,  and  relieves  the  swollen  limb.  He 
delays  to  kneel  a  moment  beside  one  low  pillow,  and  turn 
gently  to  the  light  a  face  that  is  ghastly,  with  its  bristly  beard 
and  glassy,  staring  eyes,  and  its  pallor  that  is  of  the  hue  of 
old  wax,  and  lay  it  gently  back  again  as  he  beckons  to  the 
nurse  to  bring  the  screens,  and  hide  the  Dead  from  the  sight 
of  the  living. 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  409 

He  is  in  his  element,  salient  and  masterful  and  strong.  But 
the  haggard  eyes  that  turn  upon  him  do  not  shine  with  grati- 
tude. He  has  not  reached  these  hearts.  They  accuse  him, 
quite  unjustly,  of  a  liking  for  cutting  and  carving.  They  sus- 
pect him,  quite  correctly,  of  being  in  no  hurry  for  the  ending 
of  the  siege.  How  should  he  be,  when,  these  strenuous  days 
once  over,  he  sees  nothing  before  him  but  the  murky  blackness 
of  the  night  out  of  which  he  came,  from  which  he  has  emerged 
for  one  brief  draught  of  renewed  joy  in  living  before  the  dark 
shall  close  over  him  again,  and  wrap  him  round  for  ever? 

He  has  suffered  horribly  of  late.  But  at  the  worst  his  work 
has  never  failed  to  bring  relief  and  distraction.  His  loyalty 
to  a  man  in  whom  he  believes  has  been  the  mainspring  of  his 
unflagging  strength.  He  is  not  liked  or  popular  in  any  way, 
though  Surgeon-Major  Taggart  upholds  him  manfully,  and 
McFadyen  is  loyal  to  the  old  bond.  His  harshness  repels  re- 
gard, his  coldness  blights  confidences,  and  so,  though  he  is  ad- 
mired for  his  dazzling  skill  in  surgery,  for  his  dogged  per- 
severance and  unremitting  power  of  application,  for  his  fine 
horsemanship  and  iron  nerve,  he  is  not  regarded  with  affection. 

He  is  not  in  the  least  aware  of  it,  to  do  him  justice,  when 
his  rough  ironies  and  his  brusque  repartees  give  offence.  In 
the  heyday  of  his  London  success  he  has  not  truckled  to  Rank, 
or  Influence,  or  Affluence.  The  owner  of  a  gouty  or  a  varicose 
leg  has  never  had  the  more  civil  tongue  from  Saxham  that  the 
uneasy  limb  or  its  fellow  was  privileged  upon  State  occasions 
to  wear  the  Garter.  He  trod  upon  corns  then,  as  he  treads 
upon  them  now,  without  being  aware  of  it,  as  he  goes  upon  his 
way. 

Julius  goes  with  him,  rent  by  apprehensions,  stealing  nervous 
side-glances  at  the  impassive,  opaque-skinned  face  as  Saxham 
swings  along  with  his  powerful,  rather  lurching  gait  over  the 
ploughed  and  littered  waste  that  divides  the  Hospital  from  the 
town  beyond  it.  He  speaks  once  or  twice,  but  Saxham  seems 
not  to  hear. 

The  Doctor  is  listening  to  a  dialogue  that  is  as  yet  unspoken. 
He  is  crushing  a  resistance  that  has  not  yet  been  made.  In 
imagination  his  small,  strong,  muscular  hands  are  gripped  upon 
the  throat  of  the  man  who  has  lied  to  her  and  deceived  her, 
and  he  is  listening  with  joy  to  the  gurgling  choking  efforts  to 
phrase  a  prayer  for  mercy,  or  utter  a  final  defiance,  and  he  sees 
with  grim  pleasure  how  the  fine  skin  blackens  under  his  deadly 
hold,  and  how  the  lazy,  beautiful,  grey-green  eyes,  no  longer 


410  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

sleepy  or  defiant,  but  staring  and  horribly  bloodshot,  are  al- 
ready rolling  upward  in  the  death-agony.  The  primitive 
savage  that  is  in  every  man  lusts  at  a  juncture  such  as  this  to 
kill  with  the  bare  hands  rather  than  to  slay  with  any  weapon 
known  to  civilization. 

"  Let  him  look  to  it  how  he  deals  with  her.  Let  him  look 
to  it." 

How  long  it  seems  since  Saxham  muttered  those  words, 
turning  sullenly  away  to  recross  the  stepping-stones,  leaping 
from  boulder  to  boulder  as  the  river  wimpled  and  laughed  in 
mockery  of  his  clumsy  tender  of  protection  and  her  rejection 
of  it,  and  Beauvayse's  tall  figure  stood,  erect  and  triumphant, 
on  the  flower-starred  bank,  waiting  to  recommence  his  wooing 
until  the  intruder  should  be  gone,  divining,  as  Saxham  had 
instinctively  known,  the  hidden  passion  that  rent  and  tortured 
him,  glowing  with  the  consciousness  of  secret  mastery. 

If  this  meek,  thin-blooded,  young  clergyman  who  walks 
beside  him  might  have  won  her,  it  seems  to  Saxham  that  he 
could  have  borne  it.  But  that  this  man  of  all  others  should 
dare  to  approach  her,  presume  to  rear  an  image  of  himself  in 
the  shrine  of  her  pure  breast,  win  her  from  her  high  aims  and 
lofty  ideals  with  a  bold  look  and  a  few  whispered  words,  and, 
having  thrown  his  honourable  name  into  the  lap  of  a  light 
woman  as  indifferently  as  a  jewelled  trinket,  should  dare  to 
offer  Lynette  Mildare  dishonour,  is  monstrous,  hideous,  un- 
bearable. .  .  . 

How  comes  it  that  she  of  all  women  should  be  so  easily 
allured,  so  lightly  drawn  aside?  Was  there  no  baser  conquest 
within  reach  that  this  white,  virginal,  slender  saint  should  be- 
come his  prey?  Shall  she  be  made  even  as  those  others  of 
whom  she  spoke,  when  the  veil  of  a  girlish  innocence  was 
drawn  aside,  and  strange  and  terrible  knowledge  looked  out  of 
those  clear  eyes,  and  she  said,  in  answer  to  his  question: 

"  They  are  the  most  unhappy  of  all  the  souls  that  suffer 
upon  earth.  For  they  are  the  slaves,  and  the  victims,  and  the 
martyrs  of  the  unrelenting,  merciless,  dreadful  pleasures  of 
men.  .  .  ." 

Of  men  like  Beauvayse. 

Not  only  swart  and  shaggy,  or  pale  and  bloated  beastmen, 
or  white-haired,  toothless,  blear-eyed  satyrs  grown  venerable  in 
vice.  But  beautiful,  youthful  profligates,  limbed  like  the  gods 
and  fauns  of  the  old  Greek  sculptors;  soft  of  skin,  golden  of 
hair,  with  sleepy  eyes  like  green  jewels,  soft  persuasive  voices 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  41 1 

with  which  to  pour  poisoned  words  into  innocent  and  guileless 
ears,  and  the  bold,  brave  blood  of  old-time  heroes  running  in 
their  veins,  prompting  them  to  the  doing  of  dashing,  reckless, 
gallant  deeds,  no  less  than  sins  of  luxury  and  lust. 

Let  him  look  to  it,  this  splendid  young  soldier  with  the 
ancient  name,  hope  of  his  House,  pride  of  his  Regiment.  Let 
him  look  to  it  how  he  has  dealt  with  her,  who  had  no  thought 
or  dream  but  to  save  others  from  the  fate  he  destines  for  her, 
until  his  cursed,  beautiful  face  smiled  down  at  hers.  For 
every  lying  oath  he  has  sworn  to  her,  for  every  false  promise 
made  to  the  wrecking  of  her  maiden  peace,  for  every  kiss  those 
innocent  lips  have  been  despoiled  of,  for  every  touch  of  his  that 
has  spoiled  her,  for  every  breath  of  his  that  has  scorched  the 
white  petals  of  the  Convent-reared  lily,  he  shall  pay  the  price. 

Silently  Saxham  registers  this  oath  upon  that  beloved  red- 
brown  head,  since  he  denies  its  Maker  His  honour,  and  the 
whirling  blackness  that  is  within  him  is  rent  and  cloven,  for 
one  blinding  instant,  by  the  levin-fires  of  Hell.  He  knows 
thenceforward  what  he  will  do  as  he  walks  with  the  pale  Chap- 
lain between  the  shell-torn  houses,  and  along  the  littered 
streets,  where  men  and  women  and  children,  thin  and  haggard 
and  listless  with  hunger,  and  the  deadly  inertia  of  long  con- 
finement, pass  and  repass  as  indifferently  as  though  guns 
battering  and  growling  from  the  low  grey  hills  south  and 
east,  and  the  incessant  rattle  of  rifle-fire  were  the  innocent  ex- 
penditure of  blank  cartridge  incidental  to  a  sham  fight. 

They  reach  the  Chaplain's  hotel,  and  go  to  his  room.  Sax- 
ham  waits  silently  while  Julius  searches  for  and  finds  Father 
Tatham's  letter,  takes  it  and  reads  it  attentively,  puts  it  care- 
fully away  in  a  worn  notecase,  restores  the  notecase  to  the  inner 
pocket  of  his  jacket,  and,  without  a  nod  or  word  of  farewell ,( 
is  gone. 

XLVII 

To  the  remarkably  complete  system  of  underground  wires  in- 
stalled by  the  Garrison  Telephone  Corps,  Lady  Hannah 
Wrynche,  on  duty  at  the  Convalescent  Hospital  that  was  once 
the  Officers'  Club,  was,  upon  the  Thursday  that  sees  the  pub- 
lication of  the  string  of  paragraphs  previously  quoted  from  the 
Siege  Gazette,  indebted  for  what  she  afterwards  described  with 
ruefulness  as  a  "  heckled  morning." 

Once   a  week   the    "  Social_  Jottings,"    bubbling    from    the 


tis  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

effervescent  Gold  Pen,  descended  like  rain  upon  the  parched 
soil  of  drouthy  Gueldersdorp.  To  make  gossip  where  there  is 
none  is  as  difficult  as  making  bricks  without  clay,  or  trimming 
a  hat  when  you  are  a  member  of  the  Wild  Birds  Protection 
Society,  and  plumage  is  Fashion's  latest  cry.  Under  the  cir- 
cumstances a  genuine  item  of  general  and  public  interest  was  a 
pearl  of  price.  And  yet  something  had  told  the  little  lady  that 
the  ruthless  Blue  Pencil  of  Supreme  Authority  would  deprive 
her  of  the  supreme  joy  of  casting  it  before  the  readers  of  the 
Siege  Gazette.  She  seemed  to  hear  him  saying,  in  the  pleasant 
voice  she  knew  so  well: 

"  No  personalities  shall  be  published  in  a  paper  I  control." 

He  had  said  that  on  Sunday,  when  she  had  pleaded  for  a 
freer  hand.  Well,  he  could  hardly  call  the  announcement  of 
an  engagement  a  personality,  and,  supposing  he  did,  how  easy 
to  convince  him  that  it  was  nothing  of  the  kind ! 

She  dashed  off  her  description  of  the  Convent  Kettledrum, 
and  added  the  paragraphs  we  know  of,  each  one  accentuated 
by  an  explosion  of  asterisks,  and  gave  the  blotty  sheets  to  Young 
Evans,  who  combined  in  his  sole  person  the  offices  of  sub-editor, 
engineer,  chief-compositor,  feeder,  and  Devil. 

Young  Evans,  who,  next  to  the  single-cylinder  printing- 
press  driven  by  the  little  oil-engine  that  had  sustained  a  shell- 
casualty  at  the  beginning  of  the  siege,  adored  Lady  Hannah, 
vanished  behind  the  corrugated  partition  that  separated  the 
office  from  the  printing-room,  and  presently  came  back  in  inky 
shirt-sleeves  with  a  smear  of  lubricating-oil  upon  his  forehead, 
and  laid  the  wet  slips  upon  the  Editorial  table.  Then  he  went 
back,  and  fell  to  tinkering  at  his  machine.  Lady  Hannah  cor- 
rected her  proof.  When  she  had  done  she  looked  at  her  wrist- 
watch.  In  ten  minutes  Supreme  Authority  would  descend  the 
ladder,  wield  the  Blue  Pencil,  and  depart.  Would  he  have 
mercy  and  not  sacrifice?  The  suspense  was  torturing. 

Then  a  simple  plan  occurred  to  her  by  which  Supreme  Author- 
ity might  be — she  dared  not  use  the  word  "  circumvented." 
"  Got  round  "  was  even  worse ;  "  evaded  "  sounded  nicest.  To 
resist  the  promptings  of  her  own  feminine  ingenuity  required 
a  greater  storage  of  cold  moral  force  than  Lady  Hannah  desired 
to  possess.  She  took  the  editorial  scissors,  and  daintily  cut  off 
the  three  paragraphs  from  the  bottom  of  the  slip. 

The  thing  was  done,  and  the  snipped  off  paragraphs  con- 
cealed as  a  pair  of  brown  boots,  with  steel  jack-spurs  attached, 
came  neatly  down  the  ladder.  He  gave  her  his  cheery  "  Good- 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  413 

morning,"  and  congratulated  her  on  looking  well.  Her  cheeks 
burned  and  her  heart  rat-tatted  against  the  hidden  paper,  as  he 
ran  his  keen  eye  down  slip  after  slip,  and  initialled  them  for  the 
press.  She  almost  shrieked  as  he  took  up  the  "  Social  Jottings." 
The  underground  office  whirled  about  her  as  the  blue  pencil 
steadily  travelled  down.  Then — he  was  gone — and  the 
initialled  proof  lay  before  her.  She  had  nothing  to  do  but 
neatly  and  delicately  paste  on  the  bit  she  had  snipped  off.  This 
done,  she  gathered  up  her  various  small  belongings,  swept  them 
into  her  bag,  and  went,  leaving  the  passed  proof  of  the  "  Social 
Jottings  "  column  waiting  for  Young  Evans  with  the  rest. 

In  the  middle  of  the  night  she  realized  what  she  had  done. 
But  even  in  a  beleaguered  town  under  the  sway  of  Martial 
Law  you  cannot  hang  a  lady,  or  order  her  out  and  shoot  her 
for  Mutiny  and  Treason  combined.  There  would  be  a  repri- 
mand ;  what  Bingo  pleasantly  termed  "  an  official  wigging," 
unless  the  Blue  Pencil  could,  by  any  feminine  art,  be  persuaded 
that  it  had  passed  those  pars. 

But,  of  course,  she  would  never  stoop  to  such  a  deception. 
The  ruse  she  had  employed  was  culpable.  The  other  thing 
would  be  infamous.  And — he  would  be  sure  to  see  that  the 
end  of  the  proof-slip  had  been  pasted  on. 

She  slept  jerkily,  rose  headachy,  and  set  out  for  the  Con- 
valescent Hospital  in  that  stage  of  penitence  that  immediately 
precedes  hysterical  breakdown.  She  experienced  a  crisis  of  the 
nerves  upon  meeting  a  man  who,  regardless  of  quite  a  brisk 
bombardment  that  happened  to  be  going  on  just  then,  was 
walking  along  reading  the  Siege  Gazette.  Shirt-sleeved  Young 
Evans  had  worked  until  daylight  getting  the  Thursday's  issue 
out.  And  there  was  a  tremendous  run  upon  copies.  Every 
other  person  Lady  Hannah  encountered  upon  the  street  seemed 
to  have  got  one,  and  to  find  it  unusually  interesting.  The 
women  especially.  None  of  them  were  dull,  or  languid,  or 
dark-eyed  this  morning.  The  siege  crawl  was  no  longer  in 
evidence.  They  walked  upon  springs.  Upon  the  stoep  of  the 
Hospital,  where  the  long  rows  of  convalescents  were  airing, 
every  patient  appeared  plunged  in  perusal.  Those  who  had 
not  the  paper  were  waiting,  with  watering  chops,  until  those 
who  had  would  part.  A  reviving  breath  seemed  to  have  passed 
over  them,  and  spots  of  colour  showed  in  their  yellow,  haggard 
faces.  They  talked  and  laughed.  ... 

Lady  Hannah  passed  in,  conscious  of  an  agreeable  tingling 
all  down  her  spine.  The  hall-porter,  a  brawny,  one-armed 


414  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

ex-Irregular,  who  had  lost  what  he  was  wont  to  term  his 
"  flapper  "  at  the  outset  of  hostilities,  was  too  deeply  absorbed 
in  spelling  out  a  paragraph  of  the  "  Social  Jottings "  column 
to  salute  her.  Inside  you  heard  little  beyond  the  crackling  of 
the  flimsy  sheet,  mingled  with  the  comments,  exclamations, 
anticipations,  expectations  that  went  off  on  all  sides,  met  each 
other,  and  rebounded,  exploding  in  coruscations  of  sparks. 
Something  had  happened,  something  was  going  to  happen,  after 
months  and  months  of  eventless  monotony.  It  warmed  the  thin 
blood  in  their  veins  like  comet  champagne,  and  quickened  their 
faded  appetites  like  some  salt  breath  from  the  far- 
distant  sea. 

The  flavour  of  success  upon  the  palate  may,  like  Imperial 
Tokay,  be  sensed  but  once  in  a  lifetime,  but  you  can  never  for- 
get that  once.  Out  of  her  gold  fountain-pen  Lady  Hannah  had 
spurted  a  little  ink  upon  the  famished  Gueldersdorpians,  and 
their  dry  bones  moved  and  lived.  She  knew  a  fine  must  be 
paid  for  this  dizzying  draught  of  popularity,  even  as  she  tied 
on  a  bibbed  apron,  and  superintended  the  serving  and  distribu- 
tion of  the  patients'  one-o'clock  dinner. 

Horse-soup,  with  a  few  potato-sprouts,  and  one  or  two  sil- 
vered carrots  to  the  gallon,  formed  the  menu  to-day.  There 
was  no  more  white  bread,  and  a  villainous  bannock  of  crushed 
oats  had  to  be  soaked  in  your  porringer  if  you  had  no  strength 
to  chew  it.  Sweetened  bran-jelly  followed,  and  upon  this  the 
now  apologetic  but  smiling  porter,  with  the  intelligence  that 
her  ladyship  was  wanted  at  the  wall-jigger  in  the  Matron's 
room. 

The  ring-up  came  from  Hotchkiss  Outpost  North,  where 
Captain  Bingo  was  this  day  on  duty,  via  the  Staff  Headquarters 
office  in  Market  Square,  and  the  voice  that  filtered  to  the  ear 
of  Lady  Hannah  was  unmistakably  that  of  her  own  spouse,  and 
tinged  with  a  gruffness  as  unusual  as  ominous. 

"  Hallo.     Is  that  you  ?  " 

"  Qu'il  ne  vous  en  deplaise." 

Bingo  growled  in  a  perfectly  audible  aside: 

"And  devil  a  doubt.  What  other  woman  would  jabber 
French  through  a  telephone?" 

"A  Frenchwoman  would,  possibly." 

"  Don't  catch  what  you're  saying.  Look  here,  what  made 
you  shove  such  a  whacking  bouncer  into  the  Siege  Gazette?  " 

"  Please  put  that  into  English."  She  underwent  a  quaking 
*t  the  heart. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  415 

"  I  say,  that  announcement  about  Toby  and  the  Mildare 
filly  is  all  my  eye." 

"  It  isn't  all  your  eye.    It's  first-hand,  fully  authorized  fact." 

"Rot!" 

"  Paix  et  peu.     Say  rot,  if  it  pleases  you !  "  > 

"  You'll  have  to  withdraw  and  apologize." 

"  I  can't  make  out  what  you're  saying." 

"  It  will  end  in  your  eating  humble-pie. ;  r-  Can  you  hear 
that?" 

"  I  can  hear  that  you  are  in  a  bearish  temper." 

"  I've  reason  to  be.  If  a  man  had  written  what  you  have  I 
should  punch  his  head." 

"  Say  that  again !  " 

"  I  say,  if  a  stranger  of  the  kickable  sex  had  told  such  a  pack 
of  infernal " 

Click! 

Lady  Hannah  hung  up  the  receiver,  blew  a  contemptuous 
kiss  into  the  gape  of  the  celluloid  mouthpiece,  and  turned  to 
go.  There  was  another  ring-up  as  she  reached  the  door. 

"Hallo.     Are  you  the  Convalescent  Hospital?" 

"Yes.    Who  are  you?" 

"  Staff  Bombproof  South.  I  want  to  speak  to  Lady  Hannah 
IWrynche." 

"  I'm  here,  Lord  Beauvayse." 

"  I  say,  I'm  going  to  rag  you  frightfully.  Why  on  earth 
have  you  given  us  away  in  that  beastly  paper  ?  " 

"  Whom  do  you  mean  by  '  us '  ?  " 

"Well,  me  and  Miss  Mildare." 

"  Didn't  you  tell  me  on  Sunday  that  you  were  engaged  ?  " 
she  demanded  indignantly. 

"  I  did."     The  answer  came  back  haltingly. 

"  And  that  you  didn't  care  who  knew  it?  " 

"Fact." 

"  And  that  you  two  were  going  to  be  married  as  soon  as  you 
could  pull  off  the  event?" 

"  Yes."     The  voice  was  palpably  embarrassed.     "  But " 

"Well?" 

"  But — things  you  don't  mind  people  knowing  look  beastly 
in  cold  print." 

"  If  I  were  in  your  shoes  I  should  think  they  looked  beauti- 
ful." 

Nothing  but  a  faint  buzz  came  back.  Lady  Hannah  went 
on: 


416  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"  If  I  were  in  your  shoes,  and  such  a  pearl  and  prize  and 
paragon  as  Lynette  Mildare  had  consented  to  marry  me,  I 
should  want  the  whole  world  to  envy  me  my  colossal  good  luck. 
I  should  go  about  in  sandwich-boards  advertising  it.  I  should 
buy  a  megaphone,  and  proclaim  it  through  that.  I  should " 

There  was  no  response  beyond  the  buzzing  of  the  wire. 
Beauvayse  had  evidently  hung  up  the  receiver. 

"  Is  there  any  creature  upon  earth  more  cowardly  than  a 
man  engaged?"  Lady  Hannah  demanded  of  space.  There  was 
a  futile  struggle  inside  the  telephone-box.  Somebody  else  was 
jtrying  to  ring  up.  She  put  the  receiver  back  upon  the  crutches, 
and — • 

"  Ting — ting — ting !  "  said  the  bell  in  a  high,  thin  voice. 

"Who  Is  it?  "she  asked. 

The  answer  came  back  with  official  clearness: 

"  Officer  of  the  day,  Staff  Headquarters.  If  you're  the  Con- 
valescent Hospital,  the  Colonel  would  like  to  speak  to  Lady 
Hannah  Wrynche." 

Her  knees  became  as  jelly,  and  her  heart  seemed  to  turn  a 
somersault.  She  answered  in  a  would-be  jaunty  voice  that  wob- 
bled horribly: 

"  Here — here — is  Lady  Hannah." 

"  Hold  on  a  minute,  please!  " 

She  held  on.  She  had  not  shuddered  at  the  end  of  the  wire 
for  more  than  a  minute  when  the  well-known,  infinitely- 
dreaded  voice  said  in  her  ear,  so  clearly  that  she  jumped: 

"Lady  Hannah  there?     How  d'you  do?" 

She  gulped,  and  quavered : 

"  It — it  depends  on  what  you're  going  to  say." 

"  I  see."  There  was  the  vibration  of  a  stifled  laugh,  and 
her  heart  jumped  to  meet  it.  "  So  you  anticipated  a  hauling 
over  the  coals  ?  " 

Revived,  she  shrugged  her  little  shoulders. 

"  Have  I  deserved  one?" 

The  voice  said,  with  unmistakable  displeasure  in  it: 

"  Thoroughly.  Why  were  not  the  last  three  paragraphs  of 
the  weekly  '  Social  Jottings '  column  submitted  to  me  yesterday 
with  the  rest?" 

She  heard  herself  titter  imbecilely.  Then  a  voice,  which 
she  could  hardly  believe  her  own,  said,  with  a  pitiable  effort 
to  be  gay  and  natural : 

"  Weren't  they  ?    Perhaps  you  overlooked  them." 

"  You  know  I  did  not  overlook  them." 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  417 

This  was  the  cold,  incisive,  cutting,  rasping  voice  which 
Bingo  was  wont  to  describe  as  razors  and  files.  Her  ears 
burned  like  fire,  and  her  bright,  birdlike  eyes  were  round  and 
scared.  She  gasped: 

"  Oh  ...  do  you  really " 

"  I  want  the  truth,  please,  without  quibbling."  The  voice 
was  harsh  and  cold,  and  inexorably  compelling.  "  Why  were 
those  paragraphs  not  shown  to  me  ?  " 

She  winked  away  her  tears. 

"  Because  I  was  sure  you'd  blue-pencil  them  out  of  existence. 
And  a  genuine  bit  of  news  is  such  a  roc's  egg  in  these  times 
of  scarcity." 

"Genuine!5; 

There  was  incredulity  in  the  tone. 

"  Upon  my  honour  as  the  wife  of  a  British  Dragoon." 

He  said  crisply: 

"  Precipitate  publication,  even  of  authentic  information,  is 
likely  to  be  resented  by  the  persons  concerned." 

She  remembered,  with  a  sinking  at  the  heart,  that  one  per- 
son concerned  had  already  objected. 

"  Both  of  them  authorized  the  insertion." 

"  And  the  official  consent  to  it  was  obtained  by  a  trick." 

She  whispered,  her  heart  in  the  heels  of  her  Louis  Quinze 
shoes : 

"  Please — please  don't  call  it  that !  " 

"  How  can  I  call  it  anything  else?  Besides,  has  it  occurred 
to  you  that,  should  any  copies  of  to-day's  issue  get  through 
these  lines,  the  Foltlebarres  will  be  thrown  into  a  state  of  vol- 
canic eruption?  " 

"  If  the  Foltlebarres  aren't  absolute  beetles  they'll  jump 
for  joy.  How  could  their  boy  possibly  do  better?  " 

"  I  don't  see  how  myself." 

"  Ah,  if  you're  going  to  back  up  Toby,  the  day  is  as  good 
as  won." 

"  You're  very  kind  to  say  so." 

The  red  was  dying  out  of  Lady  Hannah's  ear-tips.  That 
"  You're  very  kind  "  had  a  gratified  sound.  The  most  rigorous 
and  implacable  of  men  can  be  buttered,  she  thought,  if  the 
emollient  be  dexterously  applied.  And  a  bright  spark  of  naughty 
triumph  snapped  in  each  of  her  birdlike  black  eyes. 

"  Thanks."  He  was  speaking  again.  "  Apologies  for  keep- 
ing you.  You're  up  to  your  eyes  in  Hospital  work,  I  don't 
doubt." 


418  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"  There  is  enough  to  keep  one  going." 

"  Without  the  additional  tax  of  literary  labour."  She  was 
conscious  of  a  premonitory,  apprehensive  chill  that  travelled 
from  the  roots  of  her  hair  down  her  spine,  and  apparently 
made  its  exit  at  the  heels  of  her  Louis  Quinze  shoes.  "  So  the 
'  Social  Jottings  '  column  will  not  appear  in  the  Siege  Gazette 
after  to-day.  Good-morning." 

"Is  that  my  punishment  for  insubordination?" 

Not  a  sound  in  reply.  "  He  must  have  hung  up  the  receive, 
and  gone  away.  Oh,  horrid,  horrid  male  superiority!  "  thought 
Lady  Hannah.  "  To  have  been  put  under  arrest,  even  to  have 
been  ordered  out  and  shot,  would  be  preferable  to  being  figur- 
atively spanked  and  put  in  the  corner."  She  winked  away  some 
more  tears,  and  sniffed  a  little  dejectedly.  "  And  only  the 
other  day  he  seemed  quite  pleased  with  me,"  she  added  pen- 
sively. Then  she  shrugged  her  shoulders,  and  rang  up  the 
Head  Hospital,  North  Veld  Road. 

"Whoyou-e?" 

It  was  the  sing-song  voice  of  the  Barala  hall-boy. 

"  I'm  Lady  Hannah  Wrynche.  Is  the  Reverend  Mother  on 
duty  in  the  wards  to-day?  " 

"  I  go  see.    You  hang-e  on." 

Lady  Hannah  hung  on  until  her  small  remaining  stock  of 
patience  deserted  her.  As  she  stamped  her  small  feet,  longing 
to  accelerate  the  languid  movements  of  the  call-boy  with  a 
humanely-wielded  hatpin,  a  whisper  in  the  velvet  voice  she  knew 
stole  across  the  distance. 

"Hannah.    Is  it  you?" 

"  It's  me,  Biddy  dear." 

There  was  a  soft  laugh  that  ended  in  a  sigh.  "  It  is  so  long 
since  anybody  called  me  that." 

"  I  wouldn't  dare  to  with  you  looking  at  me." 

"  Am  I  so  formidable  of  aspect?    But  go  on." 

"  It's  not  so  easy.  But  I've  had  an  awful  morning.  Every- 
body I  like  best  down  on  me  like  bricks  and  m "  Some- 
body gulped  a  sob. 

"  You  are  crying,  dear!  " 

"  Not  a  drop.  But  if  you  join  in  the  heckling  I  shall  dribble 
away  and  dissolve  in  salt  water.  It's  all  about  those  wretched 
paragraphs  of  mine  in  the  Siege  Gazette.  But  perhaps  you 
haven't  seen  it  ?  " 

"  I  have  seen  it." 

"  You  were  quite  willing  that  the  fiancailles  should  be  made 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  419 

public.  .  .  .  Indeed,  you  gave  me  to  understand  you  desired 
it." 

"  I  was  quite  willing.    I  did  wish  it." 

"Yes.  .  .  .  Thank  you,  dear;  that  was  what  I  wanted  to 
hear  from  you.  I  understand  now  what  the  one  clapping  pair 
of  hands  must  mean  to  the  actor  who  is  booed  by  all  the  rest 
of  the  audience.  Good-bye,  dear." 

"  Stay.  .  .  .  Who  are  the  persons  who  disapprove  of  the 
announcement?  " 

"  Mr.  Bingo,  for  one.  Not  that  anything  the  dear  old  stupid 
says  matters  in  the  slightest.  And — and  Toby." 

"'Toby'?" 

"  I  mean  Lord  Beauvayse." 

"  Tell  him  I  quite  approve.  He  should  know  that  in  this 
matter  it  was  for  me  to  decide." 

"  Certainly,  dear." 

"  Whose  is  the  other  objecting  voice?  " 

"  The  Chief  thinks  I  ...  we  ...  it  ...  I  rather  fancy 
that  he  used  the  word  '  precipitate  '  in  expressing  his  opinion." 

"  Refer  him  to  me  if  he  expresses  it  again." 

"  Of  course,  dear,  since  you  .  .  ." 

"  Good-bye." 

"  Good-bye,  dear.  If  Biddy  Bawne  hadn't  been  a  nun," 
reflected  Lady  Hannah,  as  she  went  out  of  the  Matron's  office 
and  back  to  her  patients,  who  had  long  ago  dined,  "  I  think 
she  would  have  made  rather  a  despotic  Empress.  'Refer  him 
to  me*  indeed.  What  is  it;  Sergeant?  Don't  say  I'm  rung 
up  again." 

But  the  one-armed  porter  was  positive  on  the  subject,  and 
her  little  ladyship  went  back.  This  last  communication  proved 
a  puzzling  one. 

"You  there?" 

"  I  am  Lady  Hannah  Wrynche.    Where  are  you  ?  " 

There  was  a  brief  hesitation.    A  thickish  man's  voice  said : 

"  I  don't  know  as  that  matters." 

"  Who  are  you  ?  " 

There  was  another  hesitation.  Then  the  stranger  parried 
with  a  question: 

"You  wrote  them  weekly  screeds  in  the  Siege  Gazette?" 

"  I  am  responsible  for  some  of  the  social  paragraphs.  Kindly 
say  who  is  speaking?" 

"  Nobody  that  matters  much.  Can  you  tell  me  wrhere  Miss 
Mildare  lives  ?  " 


420  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"  Not  without  knowing  who  you  are." 

"  You  may  call  me  an  old  friend  of  hers,"  said  the  thickish, 
lisping  voice,  with  a  sluggish  chuckle  in  it  that  the  little  woman 
at  the  other  end  of  the  wire  had  heard  .  .  .  where?  .  .  . 

"  If  you  are  an  old  friend  of  the  young  lady  you  mention, 
how  is  it  you  don't  know  her  address?  "  she  demanded. 

"  Keep  her  address  all  you  want  to.  Only  next  time  you 
come  alongside  her  give  her  a  message  for  me.  Ask  her  if  she 
remembers  the  Free  State  Hotel  on  the  veld,  five  days'  trek 
from  Dreipoort,  and  Bough,  who  was  her  friend?  " 

Lady  Hannah  repeated: 

" '  And  Bough,  who  was  her  friend.'  You  are 
Bough ?" 

"  Click!  "  Bough  hung  up  the  receiver. 

Lady  Hannah  spent  another  bad  night,  not  wholly  due  to 
the  indigestive  influence  of  a  dinner  of  mule  colloped,  and 
locusts  fried  in  batter  by  Nixey's  chef.  Staggering  in  the  course 
of  disturbed  and  changeful  dreams,  under  the  impact  of  suffi- 
cient bricks  and  mortar  to  rebuild  toppledown  Gueldersdorp, 
being  hauled  over  mountains  of  coals,  and  getting  into  whole 
Gulf  Streams  of  hot  water,  she  was  slumberously  conscious 
that  these  nightmares  were  less  harassing  than  one  nasty,  per- 
plexing little  vision  that  kept  cropping  up  among  the  others. 
It  had  no  beginning  and  no  end.  In  it  the  Matron's  room  at 
the  Convalescent  Hospital  and  Kink's  Family  Hotel  at  Twei- 
pans  were  somehow  mixed  up,  and  the  ingenuous  Mr.  Van 
Busch,  that  Afrikander  gentleman  of  British  sympathies,  whose 
chivalrous  and  patriotic  sentiments  had  prompted  and  urged 
him  to  the  impelling  of  his  own  skin  and  the  risking  of  his  own 
liberty  in  the  interests  of  an  English  lady  masquerading  for 
political  reasons  as  the  refugee  widow  of  a  German  drummer, 
oddly  confused  in  identity  with  an  uncomfortably  mysterious 
individual  who  possessed  neither  features  nor  name. 

"  Ask  her  if  she  remembers  the  Free  State  Hotel  on  the  veld, 
five  days'  trek  from  Dreipoort,  and  Bough,  who  was  her 
friend  ?  "  the  voice  would  say. 

"  You  are  Bough  ?  "  she  would  find  herself  asking. 

There  would  be  a  little  guttural,  horrible  laugh,  and  nothing 
would  answer  but  the  buzzing  of  the  wire. 

And  then  she  was  wide  awake  and  sitting  up  in  bed,  with  a 
thumping  heart.  She  was  no  longer  in  any  doubt  as  to  the 
identity  of  the  owner  of  the  voice.  Van  Busch  was  in  Guel- 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  421 

dersdorp  .  .  .  and  however  he  came,  and  whatever  disguise 
of  person  or  of  purpose  sheltered  him,  his  presence  boded  no 
good.  The  merely  logical  masculine  mind  doffs  hat  respect- 
fully before  the  superiority  of  feminine  intuition. 


XLVIII 

SAXHAM,  shouldering  out  of  Julius's  Hotel  upon  his  way  to 
Staff  Bombproof  South,  is  made  aware  that  the  hundred-foot- 
high  dust-storm  that  has  raged  and  swirled  throughout  the 
morning  is  in  process  of  being  beaten  down  into  a  porridge  of 
red  mud  by  a  downpour  of  April  rain. 

Straight  as  Matabele  spears  it  comes  down,  sending  pedes- 
trians who  have  grown  indifferent  to  shell-fire  to  huddle  under 
cover,  adding  to  the  wretchedness  of  life  in  trench  or  bomb- 
proof as  nothing  else  can.  And  the  Doctor,  biting  hard  upon 
the  worn  stem  of  the  old  briar-root,  as  he  goes  swinging  along 
through  the  hissing  deluge  writh  his  chin  upon  his  breast  and 
his  fierce  eyes  sullenly  fixed  upon  the  goal  ahead,  recalls,  even 
more  vividly  than  upon  Sunday,  the  angry  buffalo  of  Lady 
Hannah's  apt  analogy. 

He  is  drenched  to  the  skin,  it  goes  without  saying,  in  a 
minute  or  two.  So  is  the  Railway  Volunteer,  who  challenges 
him  at  the  bridge  that  carries  the  single-gauge  railway  south- 
ward over  the  Opolo,  in  spite  of  his  ragged  waterproof  and  an 
additional  piece  of  tarpaulin.  So  is  a  mounted  officer  of  the 
Staff,  in  whom  Saxham  mechanically  recognizes  Captain  Bingo 
Wrynche,  as  he  goes  at  a  furious  gallop,  spurring  and  jagging 
savagely  at  the  mouth  of  the  handsome  if  over-thin  brown 
charger,  who  sends  stones  and  mud  and  water  flying  from  his 
furious  iron-shod  hoofs.  So  is  the  Barala  on  guard  at  the  wat- 
tled palisade  of  the  native  chief's  house — a  muddy-legged  and 
goose-fleshy  warrior,  in  a  plumed,  brimless  bowler  and  leopard- 
skin  karye,  whose  teeth  can  be  heard  chattering  as  he  stands 
to  attention  and  brings  his  gaspipe  rifle  to  the  slope.  The 
Chinamen  working  in  the  patches  of  market-garden,  where  the 
scant  supply  of  vegetables  that  command  such  famine-prices,  are 
sheltered  from  the  wet  in  some  measure  by  their  colossal  um- 
brella-hats, but  the  slashed-up  red  gravel  has  imbrued  them 
to  the  eyes.  Yet  they  continue  to  labour  cheerfully,  hoeing 
scattered  shell-fragments  out  of  the  green  mealies,  and  removing 
incrusted  masses  of  bullets  that  incommode  the  young  kidney- 


422  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

beans,  and  arranging  this  ironmongery  and  metal-ware  in  tiny 
piles,  possibly  with  a  view  to  future  commerce.  And  so,  with 
another  challenge  from  a  picket,  posted  between  the  Barala 
village  and  the  south  trenches,  where  many  of  the  loyal  natives 
are  doing  duty,  Saxham  finds  himself  on  the  perilous  tongue 
of  land  that  lies  behind  Maxim  Kopje  South,  and  where  the 
Staff  Bombproof  is  situated. 

As  the  long,  low  mound  comes  into  view,  a  dazzling  white 
flash  leaps  from  a  fold  of  the  misty  grey  hills  beyond,  and  one 
of  Meisje's  great  shells  goes  screaming  and  winnowing  west- 
ward. Then  a  sentry  of  the  Irregulars,  a  battered,  shaggys 
berr}'-brown  trooper,  standing  knee-deep  in  a  hole,  burrowed 
in  the  lee  of  a  segment  of  stone-dyke  that  is  his  shelter,  chal- 
lenges for  the  last  time. 

"  'Alt!  I  know  you  well  enough,  Doctor."  It  is  a  man 
whose  wounded  arm,  was  dressed,  one  blazing  day  last  January, 
outside  the  Convent  bombproof.  "  But  you'll  'ave  to  give  the 
countersign.  Pass  Honour  and  all's  well.  But " — the  sentry's 
nostrils  twitch  as  the  savour  of  Saxham's  pipe  reaches  them, 
and  his  whisper  of  appeal  is  as  piercing  as  a  yell — "  if  you  left 
a  pipeful  be'ind  you,  it  wouldn't  do  no  'arm.  Don't,  pull  your 
pouch  out,  sir;  the  lookout  officer  'as  'is  eye  on  you.  Open  it 
by  the  feel,  an'  drop  a  pinch  by  the  stone  near  your  toe.  I'll 
get  it  when  they  relieve  me." 

Saxham  complies,  leaving  the  sentry  to  gloat  distantly  over 
the  little  brown  lump  of  loose  tangled  fibres  rapidly  reducing 
to  sponginess  under  the  downpour  from  the  skies.  The  long 
mound  of  raw  red  earth,  crusted  with  greenish  yellow  streaks 
of  lyddite  from  the  bursting  charges,  rises  now  immediately 
before  him.  At  its  eastern  end  is  a  flag-staff  displaying  the 
Union  Jack.  Under  the  roof  of  the  little  penthouse  from  which 
the  flagstaff  rises  are  sheltered  the  vari-coloured  acetylene  lamps 
that  are  used  for  signalling  at  night. 

Midway  of  the  raw  mound  rises  the  rear  elevation  of  an 
officer  in  dripping  waterproofs,  who  is  looking  steadily  through 
a  telescope  out.  between  the  long  driving  lances  of  the  rain, 
beyond  Maxim  Kopje  South  to  those  mysterious  hills,  swathed 
in  grey-black  folds  of  storm-cloud,  that  look  so  desolate,  and 
whose  folds  are  yet  as  full  of  swarming,  active,  malignant  life 
as  the  blanket  of  an  unwashed  Kaffir.  An  N.C.O.  is  posted  a 
little  below  the  officer,  whose  narrow  shoulders  and  dark  hair, 
showing  above  the  edge  of  the  turned-up  collar  and  below  the 
brim  of  the  Field-Service  cap,  show  him  to  be  not  Beauvayse. 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  423 

And  the  usual  blizzard  of  rifle-fire,  varied  by  brisk  bursts  of 
cannonading,  goes  on,  and  the  Red  Scythe  of  the  Destroyer 
sweeps  over  these  two  figures  and  about  them  in  the  customary 
way.  But  even  women  and  children  have  grown  indifferent 
to  these  things,  and  the  men  have  long  ceased  to  be  aware  of 
them. 

A  bullet  sings  past  Saxham's  ear,  as  the  acrid  exhalations  of 
a  stable  rise  gratefully  to  his  nostrils,  recently  saluted  by  the 
fierce  and  clamorous  smells  of  the  native  village.  The  ground 
slopes  under  his  feet.  He  goes  down  the  inclined  way  that 
ends  in  the  horses'  quarters,  and  the  orderly,  who  is  sitting  on 
an  empty  ammunition-box  outside  the  tarpaulin  that  screens 
off  the  interior  of  the  officer's  shelter,  stiffens  to  the  salute, 
receives  a  brief  message,  and  disappears  within. 

Before  Saxham  rise  the  bony  brown  and  bay  and  chestnut 
hindquarters  of  half  a  dozen  lean  horses,  that  are  drowsing  or 
fidgeting  before  their  emptied  mangers.  Against  the  division 
of  a  loose-box  that  holds  a  fine  brown  charger,  still  saddled  and 
steaming,  and  heavily  splashed  with  mud,  there  leans  a  stretcher 
which,  by  the  ominous  red  stains  and  splashes  upon  it,  has  been 
recently  in  use. 

Upon  Saxham's  left  hand  is  the  shelter  for  the  rank  and 
file.  Here  several  gaunt,  hollow-eyed,  and  hairy  troopers  are 
sitting  on  rough  benches  at  a  trestle-table,  playing  dominoes  and 
draughts,  or  poring  over  tattered  books  by  the  light  of  the 
flickering  oil-lamps,  with  tin  reflectors,  that  hang  against  the 
earth  walls.  None  of  them  are  smoking,  though  several  are 
sucking  vigorously  at  empty  pipes;  and  the  rapacious  light  that 
glares  in  every  eye  as  Saxham  mechanically  knocks  out  the 
ashes  from  his  smoked-out  briar-root  against  the  side-post  of  the 
entrance  is  sufficient  witness  to  the  pangs  they  endure. 

Perhaps  it  is  characteristic  of  the  Doctor  that,  with  a  hell 
of  revenge  and  fury  seething  in  his  heart,  and  a  legion  of  devils 
unloosed  and  shrieking,  prompting  him  to  murder,  he  should 
have  paused  to  relieve  the  tobacco-famine  of  the  sentry,  and  be 
moved  to  a  further  sacrifice  of  his  sole  luxury  by  the  sight  of 
those  empty  pipes.  The  old  rubber  pouch,  pitched  by  a  cricketer's 
hand,  flies  in  among  the  domino-players,  and  rebounds  from  a 
pondtting  head,  as  the  orderly  comes  back,  and  lifts  one  corner 
of  the  tarpaulin  for  the  Doctor  to  pass  in.  A  pack  of  ravening 
wolves  tussling  over  an  unusually  small  baby  might  distantly 
reproduce  the  horrid  scene  he  leaves  behind  him.  The  trestle- 
table  and  benches  are  upset,  and  men  and  benches,  draughts  and 


424  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

dominoes,  welter  in  horrible  confusion  over  the  earthern  floor, 
when  the  horrified  orderly-corporal  rushes  in  to  quell  the  riot, 
and  thenceforward  joins  the  rioters. 

They  fight  like  wolves,  but  the  man  who  rises  up  from 
among  the  rest,  clutching  the  prize,  and  grinning  a  three-cor- 
nered grin  because  his  upper  lip  is  split,  divides  the  tobacco 
fairly  to  the  last  thread.  They  even  share  out  the  india-rubber 
pouch,  and  chew  the  pieces  as  long  as  the  flavour  lasts.  When 
the  thick,  fragrant  smoke  curls  up  from  the  lighted  pipes,  it 
steals  round  the  edges  of  the  tarpaulin  that. has  dropped  behind 
Saxham,  passing  in  to  the  wreaking  of  vengeance  upon  the  thief 
whose  profane  and  covetous  hand  has  plucked  the  white  lily  of 
the  Convent  garden. 

Now,  with  that  deadly  hate  surging  in  his  veins,  with  the 
lust  to  kill  tingling  in  every  nerve  and  muscle,  he  will  scon 
stand  in  the  presence  of  his  enemy,  and  hers.  As  he  thinks  of 
this,  suddenly  a  bell  rings.  The  sound  comes  from  the  north, 
BO  it  cannot  be  the  bell  of  the  Catholic  Church,  or  that  of  the 
Protestant  Church,  or  the  bell  of  the  Wesleyan  meeting-house, 
or  of  the  Dutch  Kerk. 

"  Clang-clang!  clang-clang!     Clang " 

The  last  clang  is  broken  off  suddenly,  as  though  the  rope  has 
been  jerked  from  the  ringer's  hands,  but  Saxham  is  not  di- 
verted by  it  from  his  occupation.  With  that  curious  fatuity 
to  which  the  most  logical  of  us  are  prone,  he  has  been  conning 
over  the  brief,  scorching  sentences  with  which  he  means  to 
strip  the  other  man's  deception  bare  to  the  light,  and  make 
known  his  own  self-appointed  mission  to  avenge  her. 

"  They  telephoned  for  me,  and  I  have  come,  but  not  in  the 
interests  of  your  sick  or  wounded  men.  Because  it.  was  imper- 
ative that  I  should  say  this  to  you:  Your  engagement  to  Miss 
Mildare  and  your  approaching  marriage  to  her  were  announced 
in  to-day's  Siege  Gazette.  You  have  received  many  congratu- 
lations. Now  take  mine — liar,  and  coward,  and  cheat!" 

And  with  each  epithet,  delivered  with  all  the  force  of  Sax- 
ham's  muscular  arm,  shall  fall  a  stinging  blow  of  the  heavy 
old  hunting-crop.  There  will  be  a  shout,  an  angry  oath  from 
Beauvayse,  staggering  back  under  the  unexpected,  savage  chas- 
tisement, red  bars  marring  the  insolent,  high-bred  beauty  of  the 
face  that  has  deceived  her. 

Other  men,  if  any  happen  to  be  present,  will  cry  out,  swear, 
interfere,  or  attempt  to.  Saxham  will  shake  their  grip  from  his 
arms  and  shoulders,  and  push  them  aside  as  he  goes  on. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  425 

"You  approached  this  innocent,  inexperienced  girl  as  a  lover. 
You  represented  yourself  to  her  and  to  her  guardian  as  a  single 
man.  All  this  when  you  had  already  a  wife  at  home  in  Eng- 
land— a  gaudy  stage  butterfly  sleek  with  carrion- juices,  whose 
wings  are  jewelled  by  the  vices  of  men,  and  who  is  worthy  of 
you,  as  you  are  of  her.  I  speak  as  I  can  prove.  Here  is  the 
written  testimony  of  a  reliable  witness  to  your  marriage  with 
Miss  Lavigne.  And  now  you  will  go  to  her  and  show  yourself 
to  her  in  your  true  colours.  You  will  undeceive  her,  or " 

There  is  a  foggy  uncertainty  about  what  is  to  follow  after 
that  "  or."  But  the  livid  flames  of  the  burning  hell  that  is  in 
Saxham  throw  upon  the  greyness  a  leaping  reflection  that  is 
red  like  blood.  A  fight  to  the  death,  either  with  weapons,  or, 
best  of  all,  with  the  bare  hands,  is  what  Saxhani  secretly  lusts 
for,  and  savours  in  anticipation  as  he  goes. 

Let  the  humanitarian  say  what  he  pleases.  Man  is  a  man- 
slayer  by  instinct  and  by  will.  And  within  the  little  area  of 
this  beleaguered  town  do  not  men  kill,  and  are  not  men  killed 
every  day?  The  conditions  are  medieval,  fast  relapsing  into 
the  primeval.  The  modern  sanctity  and  inviolability  attending 
and  surrounding  human  life  are  at  a  discount.  Even  for  chil- 
dren, the  grim  King  of  Terrors  had  become  a  bugaboo  to  laugh 
at ;  red  wounds  and  ghastly  sights  are  things  of  everyday  experi- 
ence; there  is  a  slump  in  mortality. 

In  those  old,  far-distant  Chilworth  Street  days,  two  men 
who  engaged  in  a  battle  to  the  death  about  a  woman  might 
have  seemed  hardy  savages  to  Saxham.  Here  things  are  dif- 
ferent. The  elemental  bed-rock  of  human  nature  has  been  laid 
bare,  and  the  grim,  naked  scars  upon  it,  testifying  to  the  com- 
bat of  Ice  and  Fire  for  the  round  world's  supremacy,  will  never 
be  quite  hidden  under  Civilization's  green  mantle  of  vegetation, 
or  her  toadstool  growths  of  brick  and  mortar,  any  more. 

And  the  men  are  well  matched.  Saxham  knows  himself  the 
more  muscular,  but  Beauvayse  has  the  advantage  of  him  in 
years,  and  is  lithe,  and  strong,  and  supple  as  the  Greek  wrestler 
who  served  the  sculptor  Polycleitos  as  a  model  for  the  athlete 
with  the  Diadem. 

It  will  be  a  fight  worth  having.  No  quarter.  The  Doc- 
tor's breath  comes  heavily,  and  his  blue  eyes  have  in  them  a 
steely  glitter,  and,  as  the  tarpaulin  falls  behind  him,  he  shifts 
to  a  better  grip  on  the  strong  old  hunting-crop. 

Overhead  the  rain  drums  deafeningly  on  the  tarpaulins.  The 
long  bomb-proof  is  heterogeneously  furnished  with  full  and 


426  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

empty  ammunition-boxes  marked  A.O.S.,  a  leathern  sofa-divan, 
ragged  with  spurs  and  marked  by  muddy  boots,  several  cane 
or  canvas  deck-chairs,  and  others  of  the  Windsor  pattern  com- 
mon to  the  barrack-room.  Arms  and  accoutrements  are  in 
rude  racks  against  the  corrugated-iron-panelled  walls;  a  trestle- 
table  covered  with  oilcloth  runs  down  the  middle.  It  is  lighted 
by  a  couple  of  acetylene  lamps  hanging  by  their  chains  from 
iron  bars  that  cross  the  trench  above,  and  there  is  another  lamp, 
green-shaded,  upon  a  bare  deal  table  that  stands,  strewn  with 
papers,  against  the  farther  wall. 

A  man  in  shirt-sleeves  sits  there  writing.  Another  man  is 
busy  at  a  telephone  that  is  fixed  against  the  wall  beyond  the 
writing-table.  There  is  something  fateful  and  ominous  about 
the  heavy  silence  in  which  they  do  their  work.  It  is  broken 
only  by  a  strange  sound  that  comes  almost  continuously  from — 
where  Saxham  does  not  trouble  to  ask.  It  is  the  groaning, 
undoubtedly,  of  the  wounded  man  to  whose  aid  he  has  been 
summoned,  with  the  added  injunction,  "  Bring  morphia,"  show- 
ing that  little  further  can  be  done  for  him,  whoever  he  may  be, 
than  to  smooth  his  passage  into  the  Beyond  by  the  aid  of  the 
Pain  Slayer. 

Let  him  wait,  however  sore  his  need,  until  Saxham  has  dealt 
with  his  enemy.  He  is  resentfully  impatient  in  the  realization 
that  neither  of  the  men  present  is  Beauvayse. 

Then,  as  he  stands  sullen  and  lowering,  the  man  who  has 
been  writing  gets  up  and  comes  to  him.  Saxham  recognizes 
the  keen-featured  face  with  the  rusty-brown  moustache,  and  the 
grip  of  the  lean,  hard  hand  that  hauled  a  Dop  Doctor  out  of  the 
Slough  of  Despair  is  familiar.  The  pleasant  voice  he  likes  say? 
something  about  somebody  being  very  wet.  It  is  Saxham,  from 
whose  soaked  garments  the  water  is  running  in  streams,  and 
whose  boots  squelch  as  he  crosses  the  carpet  that  has  been  spread 
above  the  floor-tarpaulin.  The  friendly  hand  pours  out 
and  offers  him  a  sparing  measure  of  that  rare  stimulant, 
whisky. 

"  As  preventive  medicine.  We  can't  have  our  Medical  Staff 
men  on  the  sick-list." 

Some  such  commonplace  words  accompany  the  proffered 
hospitality. 

"  I  shall  not  suffer,  thanks.  You  have  a  shell  casualty,  you 
have  'phoned  us,  but  before  I  see  your  man  it  is  imperative  that 
I  should  speak  to  Lord  Beauvayse.  Where  is  he  ?  " 

"  He  is  here." 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  42? 

"  My  business  with  him  is  urgent." 

The  man  at.  the  telephone  makes  a  sound  indicative  that  a 
message  is  coming  through.  The  Chief  is  beside  him  instantly, 
with  the  receiver  at  his  ear.  He  looks  round  for  an  instant  at 
Saxham  as  he  waits  for  the  intelligence,  and  the  muscles  of  his 
face  twitch  as  if  under  the  influence  of  some  strong,  repressed 
emotion,  and  the  Doctor's  practised  glance  notes  the  unsteadi- 
ness of  the  uplifted  hand.  Then  he  is  saying  to  the  officer  in 
charge  at  Maxim  Kopje  South. 

"  The  ammunition  comes  up  to-night.  Tell  Gaylord  that 
we  are  short-handed  here,  and  shall  want  him  to  help  on  night 
duty.  .  .  .  Practically  as  soon  as  he  can  join  us.  No,  no 
better.  All  for  the  present  .  .  .  thanks.  Saxham  please  come 
this  way." 

There  is  a  sleeping  place  at  the  end  of  the  long,  narrow, 
lamp-lit  perspective,  curtained  off  from  the  rude  bareness  of 
the  outer  place.  Light  shows  between  the  curtains,  and  they 
are  of  plush,  in  hue  a  rich,  deep  red.  As  that  strong  colour 
sinks  into  his  brain,  through  his  intent  and  glittering  eyes, 
Saxham  the  man  has  a  sudden  furious  impulse  to  tear  the  deep 
folds  back,  with  a  clash  of  rings  on  iron  rods,  and  call  to  the 
betrayer  who  lurks  behind  them  to  come  out  and  be  dealt  with. 
But  a  hollow,  feeble  moaning  sounds  continuously  from  the 
other  side,  and  Saxham  the  Doctor  stays  his  hand  and  follows 
the  Colonel  in.  There  are  two  camp-beds  in  the  small  sleep- 
ing-place, and  a  washstand  and  a  folding-chair.  A  lamp  hangs 
above,  and  its  light  falls  full  upon  the  face  of  the  man  whom 
he  is  seeking. 

Ah,  where  are  they?  His  furious  anger  and  his  deadly 
hate,  where  are  they  now?  Like  snow  upon  the  desert  they 
vanish  away.  How  can  one  rage  against  this  shattered  thing, 
stretched  on  the  pallet  of  the  low  cot-bed  from  which  the 
blankets  have  been  stripped  away?  First  Aid  bandages  have 
been  not  ineffectually  applied.  Fragments  of  packing-case 
have  been  employed  as  splints  for  the  broken  arm  and  shattered 
hand,  but,  in  spite  of  all  that  has  been  done,  the  beautiful 
young  life  is  sinking,  waning,  flowing  out  with  that  ruddy  tide 
that  will  not  be  stayed. 

The  greenish  pallor  and  the  dusky  sweat  of  mortal  agony 
are  upon  his  face,  thrown  back  upon  the  pillow,  and  looking 
upwards  to  where  the  tropical  rain  makes  thunder  on  the  tar- 
paulined roof.  The  atmosphere  is  heavy  with  the  sour-sickly 
smell  of  blood,  and  lamp-fumes;  he  draws  each  breath 


428  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

laboriously,  and  exhales  it  with  a  whistling  sound.  Through 
his  clenched  teeth,  revealed  by  the  lips  that  are  dragged  back 
in  the  semi-grin  of  desperate  agony,  that  dumb,  ceaseless  moan- 
ing makes  its  way  despite  the  gallant  effort  to  restrain  it.  The 
one  uninjured  arm  hangs  downwards,  its  restless  fingers  pick- 
ing at  the  bloodstained  matting  that  covers  the  loose  boards  of 
the  floor.  A  sheet  has  been  lightly  laid  over  him.  It  is  dab- 
bled with  the  prevailing  hue,  and  sinks  in  an  ominous  hollow 
below  the  breast.  And  beyond  the  bottom  of  it  splashed 
leggings  and  muddy  boots  with  spurs  on  them  stick  out  with 
helpless  stiffness. 

A  flask  of  brandy — a  precious  restorative  treasured  for  use 
in  such  desperate  need  as  this — stands  with  a  tumbler  and  a 
jug  of  water  on  the  camp  washstand  that  is  between  the  two 
cot-beds.  Upon  the  second  bed  sits  a  big  and  stoutish  man, 
whose  large  face,  not  pink  just  now,  is  hidden  in  his  thick, 
quivering  hands.  It  is  Captain  Bingo  Wrynche,  heavy 
Dragoon,  and  honest,  single-hearted  gentleman,  to  whom  be- 
longs the  blown  and  muddy  charger  drooping  in  the  loose-box 
outside.  The  telephone  has  summoned  him  in  haste  from 
Hotchkiss  Outpost  North,  to  see  the  last  of  a  friend. 


XLIX 

"  IT  was  just  before  the  rainstorm  that  it  happened.  He  was 
on  the  lookout.  They  have  been  moving  the  big  gun  and  the 
i6-pounder  Krupps  again,  and  some  of  the  laagers  seem  to  be 
shifting,  so  we  have  kept  an  extra  eye  open  of  late,  by  night 
as  well  as  by  day.  He  was  very  keen  always.  .  .  ." 

Already  he  is  spoken  of  by  those  who  have  known  and 
loved  him  as  one  who  was  and  has  been. 

"  He  had  relieved  me  at  10  a.  m.  He  might  have  been  up 
over  an  hour  when  it  happened.  The  orderly-sergeant  had 
got  his  mouth  at  the  speaking-tube,  in  the  act  of  sending  down 
a  message;  he  did  not  see  him  hit.  It  was  a  shell  from  their 
Maxim-Nordenfeldt.  And  when  we  got  to  him,  the  first  glance 
told  us  there  was  little  hope." 

"  There  is  none  at  all,"  says  Saxham  curtly,  as  is  his  wont. 
"  A  splinter  has  shattered  the  lower  portion  of  the  spine.  The 
agony  can  be  deadened  with  an  opiate,  and  the  ruptured  art- 
eries ligatured.  Beyond  that  there  is  nothing  else  to  do, 
though  he  may  live  till  morning." 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  429 

"  He  managed  to  ask  for  Wrynche  before  he  swooned,  so 
we  'phoned  him  at  Hotchkiss  Outpost  North.  He  got  here 
ten  minutes  ago,  badly  cut  up,  but  there  has  been  no  recogni- 
tion of  him.  Do  what  you  can,  Saxham,  in  the  case.  Every 
moment  may  bring  Wrynche's  recall.  There  is  another  person 
I  should  have  expected  the  poor  boy  to  ask  for.  .  .  .  That 
young  girl,  Saxham,  whose  heart  has  to  be  broken  with  the 
news,  sooner  or  later.  Perhaps  about,  nightfall,  when  it  will 
be  safe  for  her  to  venture,  I  ought  to  send  an  escort  for  Miss 
Mildare?" 

The  slow,  dusky  colour  rises  in  Saxham's  set,  pale  face,  and 
as  slowly  sinks  out  again.  He  has  been  standing  in  low-toned 
colloquy  with  the  Chief  outside  the  heavy  plush  curtains.  He 
turns  silently  upon  his  heel  and  vanishes  behind  them. 

"Ting— ting— ting!  " 

The  telephone-bell  heralds  an  urgent  recall  from  Hotchkiss 
Outpost  North.  And  a  beckoning  hand  summons  Captain 
Bingo  from  the  bedside  of  his  dying  friend  or  ever  the  word 
of  parting  has  been  spoken. 

"  It  is  for  you,  Wrynche,  as  I  expected." 

"I  am  ready,  sir.     Orderly,  get  my  damned  brute  out!" 

The  sorrow  and  love  that  swell  the  big  man's  heart  to  burst- 
ing find  rather  absurd  expression  in  his  savage  objurgation  of 
the  innocent  brown  charger.  But  Captain  Bingo,  when  he 
stoops  over  the  camp-bed  where  lies  Beauvayse,  and  kisses  him 
solemnly  and  clumsily  upon  the  forehead;  and  Captain  Bingo, 
when  he  goes  heavily  striding  out  of  the  bomb-proof  with  his 
bulldog  jowl  well  down  upon  his  chest;  and  Captain  Bingo, 
bucketing  the  lean  brown  charger  through  the  thrashing  hail- 
storm that  is  jagged  across  by  the  white-green  fires  of  burst- 
ing shell,  is  rather  a  tragic  figure. 

Meanwhile,  what  of  the  man  who  lies  upon  the  bed  ?  Since 
Bingo's  face  came  between  and  receded  into  those  thick  grey 
mists  that  gather  about  the  dying,  he  has  lost  consciousness 
of  present  things.  Fever  is  rising  in  those  wellnigh  empty 
veins  of  his,  his  skin  is  drawing  and  creeping;  it  seems  as  though 
innumerable  ants  were  running  over  him.  The  hand  that  is 
not  powerless  tries  to  brush  them  away.  Sometimes  he  thinks 
he  is  in  Hospital,  and  that  the  man  in  the  next  bed  is  groan- 
ing, and  then  he  is  aware  that  the  groans  are  his  own.  He  is 
conscious  that  a  needle-prick  in  the  sound  wrist,  has  been  fol- 
lowed by  sensible  relief.  The  unspeakable  grinding  agonies 


430  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

subside;  he  is  able  to  murmur,  "Thanks,  Nurse,"  as  he  gulps 
some  liquid  from  the  glass  a  strange  hand  holds  to  his  lips.  .  .  . 

The  groans  are  sighs  now,  and  the  clogged  brain,  spurred  by 
morphia,  shakes  off  its  lethargy.  The  fever  goes  on  rising,  and 
he  begins  silently,  for  his  powers  fail  of  speech,  to  wander  over 
all  the  past.  Could  Saxham,  sitting  motionless  and  vigilant  on 
the  folding-chair,  his  keen  eyes  quick  to  note  each  change,  his 
deft  hand  prompt  to  do  all  that  can  be  done — could  Saxham 
hear,  he  would  behold,  anatomized  before  his  mental  vision, 
the  soul  of  this  his  fellow-man. 

"  Coming  straight  for  me — five  round  black  spots  punched 
in  the  grey.  If  they  go  by,  luck's  on  my  side,  and  I  marry  her. 
If  not  .  .  .  hit — and  done  for!  " 

Exactly  thus  has  Saxham  made  of  the  unconscious  Father 
Noah,  of  the  Boer  sharp-shooters  behind  their  breastwork  the 
arbiters  of  Fate. 

"  Send  for  Bingo !  "  flashes  across  the  dying  brain.  "  Some- 
thing to  say,  Bingo.  Don't  bring  her.  Who'd  want  a  woman 
who  loved  him  to  remember  him  like  this?  What  was  it  the 
Mahometan  syce  the  m-usth  elephant  killed  at  Bhurtpore  said 
about  his  wife?  "Let  her  cool  my  grave  with  tears"  Until 
she  finds  out  .  .  .  until  someone  tells  her.  Ah — 'h !  "  There 
is  a  groan,  and  a  convulsive  shudder,  and  the  beautiful  dim  eyes 
roll  up  in  agony,  and  the  blue,  swollen  lips  are  wrung  as  the 
feeble  voice  whispers:  "  Nurse,  this  hurts  like — hell.  Some 
more — that  stuff." 

Saxham  gives  another  subcutaneous  injection  of  morphia. 
The  curtains  part,  and  the  Colonel,  in  waterproof  and  a  dread- 
nought cap,  comes  noiselessly  in.  "  No  change."  Saxham 
answers  to  the  mute  inquiry.  "  I  anticipate  none  before  mid- 
night. Of  course,  the  weakness  is  progressive." 

"  Of  course."  The  Chief  touches  the  cold,  flaccid  wrist. 
There  are  hollows  in  his  lean  cheeks,  and  deep  crow's  feet  at 
the  corners  of  the  kindly  hazel  eyes,  and  the  brown  moustache 
is  ominously  straight  and  curveless.  "  Tell  him,  if  he  re- 
covers consciousness,  that  I  thought  it  best  to  send  for  her. 
Chagrave  has  gone  with  a  couple  of  the  men.  It's  a  desperate 
night  for  a  woman  to  be  out  in,  but  they  took  an  Ambulance 
sling-chair  with  them*  They'll  wrap  her  in  tarpaulins,  and 
carry  her  in  that." 

He  nods  and  goes  up  on  the  lookout  with  a  night-glass,  and 
the  wearied  officer  he  relieves  comes  down.  As  he  has  said, 
it  is  a  desperate  night  of  driving  sleet  and  swirling  blackness, 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  431 

illuminated  only  with  the  malignant  coruscations  of  lyddite 
bursting-charges.  But  the  tempest  without  is  nothing  to  the 
tempest  that  rages  in  the  soul  of  the  quiet  man  in  sodden 
khaki  who  watches  by  the  deathbed. 

She  has  been  sent  for.  .  .  .  She  is  coming  .  .  .  To  kneel 
by  the  bed  and  weep  over  him  who  lies  there,  kiss  the  tortured 
lips  and  the  beautiful  dim  eyes,  and  hold  the  unwounded  head 
upon  her  breast.  .  .  .  How  shall  he  bear  it  without  crying 
out  to  tell  her?  He  clenches  his  hands,  and  sets  his  strong 
jaw,  and  the  sweat  breaks  out  upon  his  broad,  pale  forehead. 
The  man  upon  the  bed,  mentally  clear,  though  incapable  of 
coherent  speech,  is  now  listening  to  comments  that  shall  ere 
long  be  made  by  living  men  upon  one  who  very  soon  shall  be 
numbered  with  the  dead. 

"  Well,  well,  don't  be  hard  on  the  poor  beggar,"  he  hears 
them  saying.  "  Give  the  devil  his  due :  not.  a  bad  chap — take 
him  all  round.  Got  carried  away  and  lost  his  head.  She's 
as  lovely  as  they  make  'em,  and  he  ...  always  a  fool  where  a 
pretty  woman  was  concerned — poor  old  Toby!  " 

He  pleads  unconsciously,  with  his  most  merciless  judge,  in 
his  utter  incapacity  to  plead  at  all. 

And  so  the  time  goes  by.  There  has  been  coming  and  go- 
ing in  the  place  outside.  The  guard  has  relieved  the  double 
sentries,  the  official  lamp  burns  redly  under  the  little  penthouse. 
A  reconnoitring-patrol  ride  out,  the  horses'  hoofs  sounding  hol- 
low on  the  earth-covered  boards  of  the  covered  way.  The 
business  of  War  goes  on  in  its  accustomed  grooves,  and  the 
business  of  Life  will  soon  be  over  for  Beauvayse.  Yet  she  has 
not  come.  Saxham  looks  at  his  watch. 

Nine  o'clock.  He  has  not  eaten  since  early  morning.  He 
is  wet  to  the  skin  and  stiff  with  long  sitting.  But  when  the 
savoury  odours  of  hot  horse-soup  and  hot  bean-coffee  accom- 
panied by  the  clinking  of  crockery  and  tin  pannikins,  announce 
a  meal  in  readiness,  and  would-be  hosts  come  to  rhe  curtains 
and  anxiously  beg  him  to  take  food,  he  merely  shakes  his  square 
black  head  and  falls  again  to  watching  the  unconscious  face. 
The  conscious  brain  behind  its  blankly-staring  eyes  is  thinking: 

"  Those  paragraphs.  ...  In  black  and  white  the  thing 
looked  damnable.  And  think  of  the  gossip  and  tongue-wag- 
ging. Whatever  they  say  about  me  .  .  .  she'll  be  the  one  to 
suffere  They're  never  so  hard  on  ...  the  man." 

He  has  uttered  these  last  words  audibly;  they  pierce  to  the 
heart's  core  of  the  mute,  impassive  watcher.  Strong  antipathy 


432  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

is  as  electric  as  strong  sympathy.  With  a  leap  of  understand- 
ing, and  a  fresh  surge  of  mad,  resentment  Saxham  acknowl- 
edges the  deadly  truth  contained  in  those  few  halting  words. 
She  will  be  the  one  to  suffer.  Beside  the  martyrdom  inevitably 
to  be  endured  by  the  white  saint,  the  agony  of  the  sinner's 
death-bed  pales  and  dwindles.  There  is  a  savage  struggle  once 
again  between  Saxham  the  man  and  Saxham  the  Doctor  beside 
the  bed  of  death. 

His  sudden  irrepressible  movement  has  knocked  a  tumbler 
from  the  little  iron  washstand  at  his  elbow.  It  falls  and 
shivers  into  fragments  at  his  feet.  And  then — the  upturned 
face  slants  a  little,  and  the  eyes  that  have  been  blankly  staring 
at  the  roof-tarpaulins  come  down  to  the  level  of  his  own.  He 
and  her  fallen  enemy  regard  each  other  silently  for  a  moment. 
Then  Beauvayse  says  weakly,  in  the  phantom  of  the  old  gay, 
boyish  voice  that  wooed  and  won  her: 

"  Thought  it  was  Wrynche.     Where  is " 

The  question  ends  in  a  groan. 

Saxham  the  man  shrinks  from  him  with  unutterable  loath- 
ing. But  Saxham  the  Doctor  stoops  over  him,  saying,  in  dis- 
tinct, even  tones: 

"  Captain  Wrynche  was  here.  He  has  been  recalled  to 
Hotchkiss  Outpost  North.  Drink  this."  This  is  a  little 
measure  of  brandy  and  water,  in  which  some  tabloids  of  mor- 
phia have  been  dissolved.  And  Beauvayse  obeys,  panting: 

"  All  right.  But  .  .  .  more  a  job  for  the  Chaplain  than 
the  Doctor,  isn't  it  ?  " 

"  Do  you  wish  the  Chaplain  sent  for?  " 

There  is  a  glimmer  of  the  old  lazy,  defiant  humour  in  the 
beautiful  dim  eyes. 

"What  could  he  do?" 

Saxham  answers — how  strangely  for  him,  the  Denier: 

"  He  would  probably  pray  beside  you,  and  talk  to  you  of 
God." 

There  is  a  pause.  The  faint,  almost  breathless  whisper 
asks: 

"It's  night,  isn't  it?" 

"  It  is  dark  and  stormy  night." 

Beauvayse  says,  in  the  whispering  voice  interrupted  by  long, 
gasping  sighs  that  are  beginning  to  have  a  jarring  rattle  in 
them: 

"  Before  to-morrow.  ...  I  shall  know  more  of  God  .  .  . 
than  the  whole  Bench  of  Bishops." 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  433 

There  is  silence.  And  she  does  not  come.  The  man  on 
the  bed  makes  a  painful  effort,  gathering  his  nigh-spent  forces 
for  something  he  wants  to  say: 

"Doctor!" 

"Let  me  wipe  your  forehead.     Yes?" 

"I  ...  insulted  you  frightfully  the  other  day." 

"  You  need  not  recall  that.     I  have  forgotten  it." 

"I  ...  beg  your  pardon.  Will  you  .  .  .  shake  hands? 
.  .  .  My  left,  if  you  don't  mind.  The  other  one's  ...  no 
good." 

He  tries  to  lift  the  heavy  arm  that  lies  beside  him.  There 
is  only  a  faint  movement  of  the  finger-tips,  and  he  gives  up  the 
effort  with  a  fluttering  sob.  And  the  square  white  face  with 
the  burning  eyes  under  the  lowering  brows  opposes  itself  to 
his.  Words  are  crowding  to  Saxham's  lips. 

"/  would  gladly  shake  the  hand  of  the  man  who  insulted 
me  and  who  had  apologized.  And  I  honour  the  brave  officer 
who  meets  Death  upon  the  field.  But  with  the  would-be 
betrayer  of  an  innocent  girl,  the  dancing-woman's  husband 
who  proposed  himself  as  mate  for  Lynette  Mildare,  I  have 
nothing  but  contempt  and  abhorrence^  He  is  to  me  a  leper. 
Worse,  for  the  leper  I  would  touch  to  cure." 

He  does  not  utter  the  words,  nor  does  his  rugged,  uncon- 
querable sincerity  admit  of  his  taking  the  hand.  He  fights 
\vith  his  hatred  in  silence.  And  she  has  not  come.  What  is 
he  saying  in  that  weak  voice  with  the  rattling  breaths  between? 

"  Listen,  Saxham.  .  .  .  There's  .  .  .  something  I  want 
you  .  .  .  say  to  Miss  Mildare." 

The  grey  mists  that  gather  about  him  shut  out  a  clear  view 
of  Saxham's  terrible  face.  The  feeble  whisper  struggles  on, 
broken  by  those  rattling  gasps. 

"  Tell  her  forget  me.  Say  when  I  ...  asked  her  ...  to 
marry  me.  .  .  ." 

Silence.  He  is  falling,  falling  into  an  abyss  of  vast  uncer- 
tainties. The  blue  lips  dabbled  with  foam  can  frame  no 
more  coherent  words.  Only  the  brain  behind  the  dying  eyes 
is  alive  to  understand  when  Saxham  approaches  his  own  livid 
face  and  blazing  eyes  to  the  face  upon  the  pillow,  and  says: 

"  Do  not  try  to  speak.  Close  your  eyes  when  you  mean 
'  Yes.'  I  know  what  you  wish  me  to  tell  Miss  Mildare.  It 
is  that  when  you  asked  her  to  marry  you,  you  were  already  the 
husband  of  another  woman.  Am  I  correct?  " 

The  affirmative  signal  comes. 


434  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"  You  were  married  to  Miss  Lavigne  at  the  Registrar's 
office,  Cookham-on-Thames,  last  June,  before  you  sailed.  The 
witnesses  were  your  valet  and  the  housekeeper  at  Underose  Cot- 
tage. And  knowing  that  you  were  not  free,  you  deceived  and 
cheated  her.  That  is  what  I  am  to  tell  Miss  Mildare? 
Signal  if  I  am  right." 

The  dying  eyes  are  brimming  with  tears.  When  the  lids 
shut,  signifying  "  Yes,"  slow,  heavy  drops  are  forced  between 
them. 

"  Very  well.     Now  hear.     I  will  not  tell  her !  " 

The  eyes  open  wide  with  surprise. 

"  I  will  never  tell  her,"  says  Saxham  again.  "  I  will  not 
blacken  any  man's  reputation  to  further  my  own  interests." 
The  vital  strength  and  the  white-hot  passion  of  him,  contrasted 
with  the  spent  and  utter  laxity  of  the  dissolving  thing  of  clay 
upon  the  bed,  seem  superhuman.  "Do  you  hear  me?"  he  de- 
mands again.  "  Listen  once  more.  Knowing  the  truth  of  you 
I  came  here  to  force  you  to  undeceive  her.  Had  you  refused, 
I  would  certainly  have  killed  you.  But  I  would  never  have  be- 
trayed you." 

That  "  never  "  of  Saxham 's  carries  conviction.  The  pale 
ghost  of  a  laugh  is  in  the  dying  eyes.  The  wraith  of  Beau- 
vayse's  old  voice  comes  back  again  to  say : 

"Doctor,  you're  a  ...  damned  good  sort!"  And  then 
there  is  a  long,  long  silence,  broken  only  by  those  painful  rat- 
tling breaths,  never  by  her  coming. 

The  end  comes,  and  she  is  not  there.  A  pale  blink  in  the 
wild  sky  eastward  hints  to  the  night  lookouts  of  hot  drink, 
food,  and  welcome  rest.  The  Chief  stands  beside  the  com- 
fortless camp-bed,  where  the  hope  of  a  high  old  House  is  flick- 
ering out.  The  Doctor  holds  the  wet  and  icy  wrist,  where 
the  pulse  has  ceased  to  be  perceptible.  The  sheet  above  the 
labouring  breast  rises  and  falls  with  those  panting  rattling 
gasps;  the  beautiful  eyes  are  rolled  up  and  inwards.  The 
light  is  very  nearly  out,  when,  with  a  last  effort,  the  flame  leaps 
up.  He  thinks  that  what  is  the  barely  perceptible  whisper 
of  a  voice  already  earth  is  a  loud  and  ringing  cheer.  He 
thinks  that  he  is  shouting,  his  strong  young  voice  topping  a 
hundred  other  voices.  It  seems  to  him  who,  for  the  bribe  of 
all  the  beauty  he  has  coveted,  and  all  the  love  that  is  yet  un- 
won,  could  not  speak  one  audible  word  or  move  a  finger,  that 
he  waves  his  hat  again  and  again.  Oh,  glorious  moment  when 
the  white  moonbeams  blink  on  the  grey  dust-wall  rolling  down 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  435 

from  the  North,  and  the  horsemen  of  the  Advance  ride  out 
of  it,  and  clustering  enemies  that  have  rallied  again  to  the  at- 
tack waver,  and  disperse,  and  scatter.  .  .  . 

"Hurrah!  They're  running — running  for  their  lives. 
Give  it  'em  with  shrapnel.  Oh,  pepper  'em  like  hell.  The 
Relief!  The  Relief!  Hurrah!" 

It  is  all  over  with  the  opening  of  the  day-eye  in  the  east. 
When  they  leave  him,  beautiful  and  stern,  and  calm  in  that 
deep  slumber  from  which  only  the  Angel  with  the  Trumpet 
may  awaken  him,  and  pass  out  between  the  curtains,  the  dark, 
short  officer  who  was  on  the  lookout  when  the  Doctor  came 
stands  very  pale  and  muddy,  and  steaming  with  damp,  waiting 
to  report.  And  two  troopers  of  the  Irregulars,  wet  and  muddy 
and  steaming  too,  are  waiting  also  just  inside  the  tarpaulins  of 
the  outer  doorway.  And  she  is  not  there. 

A  few  rapid  words,  an  exclamation  from  the  Chief,  shaken 
for  once  out  of  his  steely  composure,  and  quivering  from  head 
to  foot  with  mingled  rage  and  grief: 

"  My  God,  how  unutterably  horrible!" 

Saxham  shoulders  his  way  into  the  ring  of  white  faces  that 
have  gathered  about  the  dark  little  muddy  officer. 

"What  has  happened  to  Miss  Mildare " 

The  little  officer  answers,  panting: 

"  The  Sisters  could  not  make  her  understand  she " 

The  Chief  speaks  for  him: 

"  She  had  been  previously  stunned  by  the  shock  of — a  ter- 
rible calamity." 

"What  calamity?" 

"  The  Mother-Superior  has  been  killed.  Two  of  the  Sisters 
and  Miss  Mildare  found  her  in  the  Convent  Chapel.  They 
got  there  before  evening.  She  must  have  been  dead  some 
hours.  She  had  been  shot  through  the  lungs." 

"By  a  stray  bullet?" 

"  By  a  bullet  from  a  revolver,  fired  close  enough  to  scorch 
the  clothes.  Foul  murder,  and  by  God  who  saw  it  done " 

The  lean  clenched  hand,  thrown  upwards  in  a  savage  ges- 
ture, the  blazing  eyes,  the  livid,  furrowed  face,  the  writhen 
mouth,  the  furious,  jarring  voice,  leave  little  doubt  of  the  ven- 
geance that  will  be  wreaked  when  he  shall  track  down  the 
murderer.  He  wheels  abruptly,  and  goes  to  the  telephone. 
The  swift,  imperative  orders  vault  from  fort  to  fort;  the  cir- 
cuit of  vigilance  is  made  complete,  the  human  bloodhounds  un- 


436  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

leashed  upon  the  trail,  in  a  few  instants,  thanks  to  the  buzzing 
wire  that  brings  the  mouth  of  a  man  to  the  ear  of  another  across 
a  void  of  miles. 

But  Bough,  primed  with  knowledge  as  to  which  are  dummy 
rifle-pits  and  which  are  real,  aided  by  acquaintance  with  the 
ground,  and  covered  by  that  withering  night  of  storm,  has  al- 
ready pierced  the  lines.  Subsequently  that  excellent  Afri- 
kander, Mr.  Van  Busch,  rejoins  Bronnckers'  bright  boy  at 
Tweipans  with  information  that  decides  the  date  of  the  Feint 
from  the  East 


SHE  had  gone  about  her  Master's  business  all  Monday,  calm 
and  composed,  and  inexorably  gentle.  She  did  not  meet 
Richard's  daughter  before  nightfall.  "  She  will  not  suffer 
now,"  she  thought,  even  as  she  sent  the  message  that  was  to 
allay  Lynette's  anxiety,  and  give  notice  of  her  whereabouts 
in  case  of  need.  Her  mission  led  her  to  a  half-wrecked  shanty 
at  the  south  end  of  the  town,  where  some  Lithuanian  emigrants 
herded  together  in  indescribable  filth  and  misery.  A  woman 
who  had  been  recently  confined  lay  there  raving  in  puerperal 
fever.  Until  nightfall,  when  she  was  removed  to  the  Women's 
Hospital  on  the  veld,  near  the  Laager  of  the  Women,  the 
Mother-Superior  remained  with  the  patient. 

A  burly,  bushy-bearded  man,  with  a  peculiarly  dark  skin 
and  strange  light  eyes,  passing  the  broken  window,  caught 
sight  of  the  noble  profile  and  the  stately  shoulders  stooping 
above  the  miserable  bed.  Going  home  at  dark,  the  Mother 
heard  a  stealthy  footstep  following  behind  her. 

Since  the  Town  Guard  had  been  withdrawn  to  man  the 
trenches,  many  people,  revisiting  their  deserted  dwellings,  had 
found  them  plundered  of  movable  possessions,  and,  losing  the 
fear  of  Eternity  in  wrath  at  the  wholesale  evaporation  of  their 
worldly  goods,  had  thenceforth  remained  to  protect,  them.  In- 
stances there  had  been  of  robbery  from  the  person  by  thieves 
not  all  tracked  down  by  Martial  Justice  and  made  examples 
of. 

The  hovering  human  night-bird  and  the  prowling  human 
jackal,  whose  sole  end  is  money  and  money's  worth,  have  no 
terrors  for  Holy  Poverty.  But  there  are  other  creatures  of 
prey  more  terrible  than  these.  And  the  padding  footsteps  that 
followed,  hurrying  when  she  hurried  and  slackening  when  she 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  437 

went  more  slowly,  and  stopping  dead  when  she  stopped  and 
looked  round,  conveyed  to  her  a  haunting  scene  of  something 
sinister,  and  at  the  same  time  greedy  and  guileful,  that  bided  its 
time  to  spring. 

She  moved  in  long,  swift,  undulating  rushes,  her  black  robes 
sweeping  noiselessly  as  a  great  moth's  wings  over  the  well- 
known  ground,  her  course  kept  unfalteringly;  but  her  heart 
shook  her,  and  she  gasped  as  the  Convent  bomb-proof  neared 
in  sight.  She  had  wrought  much  and  suffered  more  of  late, 
and  she  knew  herself  less  strong  than  she  had  been.  When  the 
blue  light  that  hung  from  a  post  by  the  ladder-hole  blinked 
"  Home "  through  the  mirk  of  a  night  of  thin  rain  and 
mist-shrouded  stars,  she  knew  infinite  relief.  Her  great  eyes 
were  as  wild  and  strained  as  a  hunted  deer's,  and  her  bosom 
heaved  with  her  panting  breaths.  She  paused  a  moment  to 
regain  her  composure  before  she  went  down. 

The  nuns  who  were  not  on  night-duty  were  gathered  to- 
gether about  the  trestle-table  sewing,  while  the  lay-Sisters  pre- 
pared the  scanty  evening  meal.  Lynette  was  there,  sitting  pale 
and  quiet  on  her  corner-stool.  Richard's  daughter  had  been 
watching  and  waiting  for  her  Mother.  Ah,  to  see  the  re- 
lief and  gladness  leap  into  the  dear  face,  and  shine  in  the 
beautiful  wistful  eyes  that  had  shed  such  tears,  dear  God! — 
such  tears  of  anguish  upon  Sunday — and  then  had  dried  at  the 
utterance  of  her  decree 

"  You  are  never  to  tell  him." 

— And  changed  into  radiant  stars  of  joy,  by  whose  light  the 
darkness  of  her  own  wickedness  and  misery  seemed  almost 
bearable. 

"  It  is  the  Mother.     Mother " 

Lynette  sprang  up,  and  would  have  hurried  to  her,  but  the 
Mother  lifted  a  warning  hand,  and  calling  Sister  Tobias  to 
her,  passed  aside  into  a  curtained-off  and  precautionary  cave  that 
had  been  hollowed  out  behind  the  ladder.  This  was  the  cus- 
tom when  the  ladies  of  the  Holy  Way  returned  from  doubtful 
or  infectious  cases.  Lynette  sighed,  and  went  back  to  her  stool 
to  wait.  The  needles  had  not  ceased  stitching. 

That  humble  saint,  Sister  Tobias,  hurried  to  her  diligent 
ministry  of  purification.  When  she  came  in  with  hot.  water 
and  carbolic  spray,  she  brought  a  letter  with  her.  It  was  di- 
rected to  the  Mother  in  a  coarse  round  hand. 

"  Somebody  dropped  this  down  the  ladder-hole  as  I  came 
by  with  my  kettle,"  said  Sister  Tobias.  "  It's  the  first  letter- 


438  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

box  I  ever  knew  that  was  as  wide  as  the  door.  Maybe  'twill 
bring  in  a  new  fashion,  for  all  we  know."  She  made  her 
homely  joke  with  a  sore  heart  for  the  sorrow  she  read  in  the 
Mother's  beloved  face,  and  trotted  away  to  fetch  clean  towels, 
saying — a  favourite  saying  with  Sister  Tobias — that  her  head 
would  never  save  her  heels. 

The  Mother  opened  the  letter.  It  was  anonymous,  and 
utterly  vile.  Had  the  pen  been  dipped  in  liquid  ordure,  the 
thing  written  could  not  have  been  more  defiling  to  the  touch 
than  its  meaning  was  to  this  pure  woman's  chaste  eyes.  Had 
a  puff-adder  writhed  out  of  the  envelope,  and  struck  its  fangs 
into  the  beautiful  hand,  it  would  have  poisoned  her  less  cer- 
tainly. And  every  beat  of  the  obscene  words  upon  the  brain, 
strangely  enough,  awoke  an  echo  of  those  long  padding  footsteps 
that  had  followed  in  the  dark.  And  their  owner  knew  of  all 
that  had  happened  at  the  tavern  on  the  veld,  when  a  human 
brute  had  triumphed  in  his  bestiality,  and  a  girl-child  had  been 
helpless,  and  the  great  white  stars  had  looked  down  unmoved 
and  changeless  upon  Innocence  destroyed. 

The  Mother  read  the  letter  from  the  loathly  beginning  to  the 
infamous  end.  She  had  been  sorely  wrought  upon  of  late. 
She  tried  to  pray,  but  she  knew  the  Ear  Above  must  be  averted 
from  one  who  had  lied  and  was  in  deadly  sin.  .  .  .  When 
Sister  Tobias  came  back  she  found  her  lying  in  a  swoon. 

The  little  old  crooked,  nimble  Sister,  with  the  long,  pale 
sheep-face,  dropped  on  her  knees  beside  that  prone  column  of 
stately  womanhood,  removed  the  hooded  mantle,  loosened  her 
guimpe  and  habit,  and  worked  strenuously  to  revive  her,  drop- 
ping tears. 

"  My  beautiful,  my  poor  lamb !  "  she  crooned.  "  What's 
come  to  her?  What  wicked  shadow's  black  on  all  of  us? 
What's  brooding  near  us — Mary  be  our  guardian! — that's 
struck  at  her  to-night?" 

The  letter  lay  upon  the  floor,  where  it  had  dropped  from 
the  unconscious  hand.  It  lay  there  for  Sister  Tobias,  and 
might  lie.  If  the  Mother  willed  to  tell  its  contents,  she  would 
tell.  If  not,  the  little  old  nun,  her  faithful  daughter,  would 
never  ask  or  seek  to  know. 

She  opened  her  great  eyes  at  last,  and  smiled  up  at  the  tender, 
wrinkled  ugliness  of  the  long,  sheep-like  face  in  the  close  white 
linen  guimpe. 

"  Say  nothing  to  anybody.  I  was  overdone,"  she  said,  and 
rose.  Sister  Tobias  picked  up  the  letter,  and  gave  it  to  her. 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  439 

There  was  a  Boer  mutton-fat  candle  flaring  smellily  in  an  iron 
sconce  upon  the  wall.  The  Mother  moved  across  the  little 
room,  and  burned  the  letter  to  the  last  blank  corner,  and  trod 
the  fallen  ashes  into  impalpable  powder.  Then  she  helped 
Sister  Tobias  to  remove  every  trace  left,  and  obviate  every 
danger  that  might  result  from  her  late  toil,  and  rejoined  her 
quret  family  of  daughters  as  though  nothing  had  happened. 

They  recalled  afterwards  how  cheerful  and  how  placid  she 
had  seemed  that  night.  Her  smile  had  a  heart-breaking  sweet- 
ness, and  her  voice  made  wonderful  melody  even  in  their  ac- 
customed ears. 

They  supped  on  the  little  that  they  had,  and  chatted,  said 
the  night  prayers,  and  went  aching,  all  of  them,  with  unsatis- 
fied hunger  to  bed.  You  may  conjecture  the  orderly,  modest 
method  of  retiring,  each  Sister  vanishing  in  turn  behind  a  cur- 
tained screen  to  disrobe,  lave,  and  vest  herself  for  sleep,  emerg- 
ing in  due  time  in  the  loose,  full  conventual  night-garment  of 
thick  white  twilled  linen,  high-throated,  monkish-sleeved,  and 
girdled  with  a  thin  cotton  cord,  her  face,  plain  or  pretty,  young 
or  elderly,  framed  in  the  close  little  white  drawn  cap  of  many 
tucks. 

Then,  the  ladder  having  been  removed,  and  the  tarpaulin 
pulled  over  its  hole,  the  lights  were  extinguished,  and  only  the 
subdued  crimson  glow  of  the  tiny  lamp  that  burned  before  the 
silver  Crucifix  that  had  stood  above  the  Tabernacle  on  the  altar 
of  the  Convent  Chapel  burned  ruby  in  the  thick,  hot  dark, 
where,  upon  the  little  iron  beds,  each  divided  by  a  narrow, 
white-cotton-covered  board  into  two  constricted  berths,  the  row 
of  quiet  figures  lay  outstretched,  her  Breviary  upon  every 
Sister's  pillow,  and  her  beads  about  her  wrist. 

The  Mother  lay  very  still,  seeing  the  hideous  phrases  of  the 
anonymous  letter  written  in  hellish  characters  of  mocking  flame 
on  the  background  of  the  dark.  She  prayed  as  the  wrecked 
may  when  the  ship  beneath  their  feet  is  going  down.  Beside 
her  Lynette,  not.  daring  to  disturb  the  silence,  suddenly  grown 
rigid  and  awful,  lay  aching  with  the  loneliness  of  living  on  the 
other  side  of  the  wide  gulf  of  division  that  had  suddenly 
yawned  between. 

She  had  spent  the  day  at  the  Hospital  with  Sister  Hilda- 
Antony  and  Sister  Cleophee.  She  had  not  seen  Beauvayse. 
But  a  note  had  come  from  him,  that  had  warmed  the  heart  she 
hid  it  near.  His  dearest,  he  called  her — his  own  beautiful  be- 
loved. He  could  not  snatch  a  minute  from  duty  even  to  kiss 


440  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

his  darling's  sweetest  eyes,  but  on  Sunday  they  would  be  to- 
gether all  day.  And  would  she  not  meet  him  at  the  Convent 
on  Thursday,  at  twilight,  when  the  shelling  stopped,  and  it 
would  be  safe  for  his  beloved  to  venture  there  ?  She  must  not 
come  alone.  Dear  old  Sister  Tobias  would  bring  her,  and  play 
Mrs.  Grundy's  part.  And,  with  a  thousand  kisses,  he  was 
hers  in  life  and  death. 

Her  first  love-letter,  and  it  seemed  to  her  so  beautiful.  It 
laid  a  hand  upon  her  heart  that  thrilled,  and  was  warm  and 
strong.  The  hand  said  "  Mine." 

His.  She  would  be  his  one  day — soon ;  and  there  would  be 
no  more  mysteries  between  the  man  and  the  woman  welded  by 
God's  ordinance  into  husband  and  wife.  She  shivered  a  little 
at  the  thought  of  that  intimate,  peculiar,  utter  oneness.  And 
then,  with  a  sickening,  horrible  sinking  of  the  heart,  she  realized 
that,  however  well  such  a  secret  as  that  she  guarded  might  be 
hidden  before  the  priest  and  the  clergyman  made  they  twain 
One,  it  must  be  known  of  both  afterwards,  or  else  be  for  ever 
threatening  to  start  through  the  burying  earth,  crying,  "  I  am 
here.  How  came  you  to  forget?" 

She  had  been  cold  in  the  sultry  heat  of  that  long  noon,  and 
deaf  when  voices  spoke  to  her.  She  was  thinking.  .  .  .  How 
if  she  might  be  mistaken  in  him,  even  now  ?  He  was  beautiful 
and  brave  and  alluring  to  her  woman's  sense  in  what  she  knew 
of  him,  and  what  was  yet  to  know.  He  called  her  and  drew 
her.  Nothing  noble  awakened  in  her  at  the  smile  on  the  gay, 
bold  lips  and  in  the  grey-green,  jewel-bright  eyes.  When  he 
had  held  her  to  his  heart,  she  had  not  felt  her  soul  merge  with 
another,  its  fellow,  and  yet.  stronger  and  greater,  in  that  em- 
brace. He  and  she  were  not  bodiless  spirits  floating  in  pure 
ether,  but  an  earth-made  girl  and  boy,  very  much  athirst  for 
the  common  cup  of  human  rapture,  hungry  for  the  banquet  of 
mortal  bliss. 

It  was  sweet,  but  how  if  he  were  another,  and  not  the  one  ? 
How  if  her  hasty  gift  of  herself  robbed  both  in  the  long  end? 
How  if  his  headlong  passion  and  tempestuous  love  should  be 
torn  from  him  like  rags  in  the  first  instant  of  that  discovery 
that  must  almost  inevitably  be  made?  She  heard  his  boyish 
voice  crying,  "Hateful!  .  .  .  You  have  deceived  me!"  and 
was  stabbed  with  quick  anguish,  knowing  him  in  the  right. 

Men  did  not  enter  into  marriage  pure.  By  some  unwritten 
code  of  that  strange  Law-giver,  the  World,  they  were  absolved 
of  the  necessity  of  spotlessness.  They  might  slake  their  thirst 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  441 

at  muddy  sources  unrebuked.  And  the  more  each  wallowed, 
the  more  he  demanded  of  the  woman  he  wedded  that  she  should 
be  immaculate  in  thought  and  deed — if  in  knowledge,  that  was 
all  the  better. 

What  a  cloud  of  doubts  assailed  her,  swarming  like  bees, 
settling  in  every  blossomed  branch  of  her  mind,  and  blotting 
it  out  with  angry  buzzing,  furry  bodies,  armed  with  sharp  stings 
for  punishment  or  revenge.  She  had  seen  a  little  peach-tree 
weighted  down  and  bowed  to  the  red  earth  at  its  roots  with  the 
weight  of  such  a  swarm.  She  felt  at  this  juncture  very  like 
the  tree.  A  little  more,  only  a  slight  increase  of  the  burden, 
and  the  slender  trunk  would  have  snapped.  When  the  bee- 
master  came  and  shook  the  double  swarm  into  a  couple  of  hives, 
the  little  tree  stayed  crooked.  It  did  not  regain  its  beautiful, 
healthful  uprightness  for  a  long  time. 

The  Mother  had  commanded  her  never  to  tell  Beauvayse. 
She  realized  that  in  this  one  sorrowful  instance  she  was  wiser 
than  her  teacher.  If  unutterable  misery  was  not  to  result  from 
their  union,  he  must  be  told  the  truth  before  .  .  . 

Once  he  knew  it,  would  he  love  her  any  longer?  Would 
he  desire  to  make  her  his  wife  ?  She  knitted  her  brows  and  her 
fingers  in  anguish,  and  set  her  little  teeth.  Possibly  not. 
Probably  not. 

And  supposing  all  went  well  and  they  were  married.  She 
had  not  realized  clearly,  even  when  she  talked  of  travelling 
abroad  into  the  unknown,  conjectured  world,  what  it  would 
mean  to  go  out  from  this,  the  first  home  she  had  ever  known, 
and  leave  the  Mother.  She  caught  her  breath,  and  her  heart 
stopped  at  the  thought  of  waking  up  one  morning  in  a  new, 
strange  country,  and  knowing  that  dear  face  thousands  of  miles 
away. 

The  loneliness  drove  her  to  daring.  She  reached  out  a 
timid  hand,  and  laid  iii:  upon  the  breast  of  the  still,  rigid,  im- 
movable figure  beside  her.  Ah,  what  a  leaping,  striving,  throb- 
bing prisoner  was  caged  there!  A  faint  sob  of  surprise  broke 
from  her.  Ah,  what  was  it  ?  what  could  it  mean  ? 

The  faint  sound  she  uttered  plucked  at  the  strings  of  that 
tortured  heart.  The  Mother  turned,  rose  upon  her  elbow, 
leaned  over  the  low  dividing  barrier,  took  the  slight  body  in  her 
arms,  and  gathered  it.  closely  to  her,  shielding  it  from  the 
fangs  of  that  coiled,  formless  Terror  that  threatened  in  the 
dark.  She  felt  how  thin  and  light  it  was,  and  how  frail  the 
arms  were  that  clung  about  _her,  and  how  wasted  was  the 


442  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

face  that  pressed  against  the  coarse,  conventual  linen,  covering 
the  broad,  deep  bosom  whose  chaste  and  hidden  beauties  Fam- 
ine had  not  spared. 

She  would  be  a  real  mother  once — just  once.  God  would 
not  grudge  her  that.  She  bared  her  breast  to  the  cheek  with 
a  sudden  half-savage,  wholly  maternal  gesture,  and  drew  it 
close  and  pillowed  it  and  rocked  it.  Had  Heaven  wrought 
a  miracle  and  unsealed  those  whit.e  fountains  of  her  spotless 
womanhood,  she  would  have  found  it  sweet  to  give  of  herself 
to  Richard's  starving  child.  But.  she  had  nothing  but  her 
great,  indignant  pity  and  her  boundless  agony  of  love.  Long 
hours  after  the  face  lay  hushed  in  sleep  above  her  heart,  and 
while  the  long,  soft  breaths  of  slumber  went  and  came,  she  lay 
staring  out  into  the  sinister  blackness  over  the  beloved,  menaced 
head. 

Rain  leaked  through  the  tarpaulin  over  the  ladder-hole,  fall- 
ing in  heavy,  sullen  gouts  and  splashes  on  the  beaten  earth  be- 
low as  blood  drips  from  a  desperate  wound.  That  image  rose, 
and  the  blackness  seemed  all  red — red  with  those  lines  of  fiery 
writing  on  it,  smoking  and  crawling,  flickering  and  blazing, 
climbing,  and  licking  with  thin  greenish  tongues  of  hell-begot- 
ten flame. 

Then  the  midnight  hour  struck,  and  it  was  time  to  rise  for 
Matins.  Long  after  the  Sisters  had  gone  back  to  bed  the 
Mother  knelt  on,  a  motionless  figure  wrestling  in  silent  prayer 
before  the  silver  Crucifix  upon  the  wall.  Dawn  found  her  still 
kneeling.  No  ray  of  heavenly  light  had  found  her  soul,  that 
weltered  in  darkness,  crying  to  One  Who  seemed  not  to  hear. 


LI 

SHE  did  not  venture  to  take  Lynette  with  her  to  the  Hospital 
next  day,  but  secretly  charged  Sister  Tobias  and  Sister  Hilda- 
Antony  to  carry  her  whithersoever  they  went,  and  not  once  to 
let  her  out  of  sight.  This  done,  she  knew  herself  impotently 
helpless  to  do  more.  This  strong  and  salient  woman,  lapped 
in  unseen,  impalpable  serpent-coils  that  tightened  every  hour, 
was  waxing  weak.  By  her  own  deed  she  had  barred  out  help 
and  put  counsel  far  from  her.  She  had  known  the  punishment 
would  not  be  long  in  coming,  when,  for  the  sake  of  Richard's 
daughter,  she  had  lied  to  Richard's  friend. 

Now  she  knew,  poor,  noble,  suffering  soul,    that   it   would 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  443 

have  been  wiser  to  have  saved  her  spotless  garment  from  the 
smirch  by  telling  him  the  truth.  Then  she  could  have  fought 
this  invisible  tarantula  Thing,  with  the  conjectural  hairy  claws, 
the  baleful,  glittering  eyes,  and  the  padding  feet  that  dogged 
her  in  the  dark,  with  a  strong  man's  arm  to  aid  her.  God  was 
in  Heaven,  and  in  Him  were  her  faith  and  trust,  but  the  com- 
fort of  a  human  counsellor  would  have  been  unspeakable, 

In  a  purely  spiritual  difficulty  she  would  have  gone  to 
Father  Wilx.  The  kindly,  fussy,  feeble  little  old  priest  could 
hardly  help  her  in  this  extremity.  She  had  never  told  him 
what  had  happened  at  the  tavern  on  the  veld.  Deep  in  her 
woman's  pitying  heart  the  child's  cruel  secret  had  been  buried, 
once  learned.  Sister  Tobias  was  the  only  one  who  shared  it. 

Meanwhile  she  was  followed  that  night  and  the  next  night; 
and  on  the  morning  of  the  Thursday,  when  she  rose  from  her 
sleepless  bed,  another  letter  weighted  with  a  stone  had  been 
dropped  down  the  ladder-hole.  She  was  to  give  the  anony- 
mous writer  a  meeting  and  receive  a  message,  unless  she  wished 
them  that  chose  to  be  nameless  to  lay  in  wait  for  the  girL 
Most  likely  that  would  be  the  better  way.  She  would  choose. 

She  burned  the  second  viper-letter  before  she  went  to  the 
Hospital.  She  found  the  single  sheet  of  the  Siege  Gazette 
fluttering  in  every  hand.  Even  her  dignified  reserve  could  not 
ward  off  the  well-meant  congratulations,  the  eager  questions, 
the  interested  comments  on  the  news  contained  in  the  three  last 
paragraphs  of  the  column  that  was  signed  "  Gold  Pen."  Then 
came  the  telephone  message  from  Lady  Hannah.  We  know 
what  words  of  hers  the  wire  carried  back.  All  the  more  firm, 
all  the  more  courageous,  all  the  more  determined  that  her  knees 
shook,  and  her  heart  was  as  water  within  her.  For  the  thing 
that  coiled  in  the  dark  would  surely  strike  now. 

Perhaps  it  was  some  premonition  of  approaching  death  that 
made  her,  always  gracious,  always  infinitely  kind,  untiring  in 
helpful  deeds,  move  about  among  the  sick  that  day,  with  sudi 
a  sorrowful-sweet  tenderness  for  them  in  her  noble  face  ami 
in  her  gentle  touch,  and  in  that  wood-dove's  voice  of  hers,  that 
they  spoke  of  it  long  afterwards  with  bated  breath.  A  per- 
fume as  of  rare  incense  was  wafted  from  the  folds  of  her  veil, 
they  said,  and  a  pale  aureole  of  light  shone  about  her  white- 
banded  forehead,  and  her  eyes Ah,  who  that  met  their 

look  could  ever  forget  those  eyes? 

It  was  before  twilight  when  she  left  the  Hospital  and  went 
to  the  Convent,  a  tall,  upright,  mantled  and  hooded  figure, 


444  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

stepping  through  the  heavy  rain  that  had  begun  to  fall,  under 
a  quaint  monster  of  a  cotton  umbrella  with  ribs  of  ancient 
whale — Tragedy  carrying  Farce. 

It  was  not  the  custom  to  linger  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Convent,  even  among  those  who  were  most  indifferent  to  shot 
and  shell.  No  one  was  visible  in  its  vicinity,  except  one  burly, 
bushy-bearded,  dark-skinned  man  in  tan-cords  and  a  moleskin 
jacket.  He  lounged  against,  a  bent  and  twisted  lamp-post,  near 
the  broken  entrance-gates,  cutting  up  a  lump  of  something  that 
might  have  been  cake-tobacco  upon  his  broad,  thick  palm  with 
a  penknife. 

She  passed  him  as  she  went  in.  His  slouched  hat  made 
shadow  for  his  eyes.  But  so  curiously  shallow  and  flat  and 
rusty  pale  were  they  against  the  purplish-brown  of  the  full- 
blooded,  bearded  face  that  their  sharp,  sly,  sudden  look  as  she 
went  by  was  as  though  the  adder-fangs  had  slashed  at  her.  She 
knew  it  was  the  man  who  had  written  those  two  letters.  And 
something  else  she  knew,  but  did  not  dare  to  admit  her  knowl- 
edge even  to  herself  as  yet. 

She  mustered  all  her  forces  to  meet  what  was  coming  as  she 
went  up  the  broken  stairs.  The  wind  and  the  long,  driving 
lances  of  the  rain  came  at  her  through  the  gaps  in  the  walls. 
The  sky  was  a  driving  hurry  of  muddy  vapours.  The  grey  hills 
were  blotted  out  by  mist  and  fog.  Long  flashes  of  white  fire 
leaped  from  them,  and  the  heavy  boom  of  cannon  followed. 
Then  all  would  be  still  again.  She  passed  down  the  white- 
washed, matted,  sodden  corridor,  and  drew  out  the  heavy  key 
of  the  Chapel  door  from  a  deep  pocket  under  her  black  habit, 
and  went  in. 

Rain  beat  in  here  through  jagged  holes  in  the  soft  brickwork 
and  poured  through  the  broken  roof,  whose  rubbish  littered 
the  floor.  Whiter  squares  on  the  whitewashed  walls,  sodden 
now  with  damp  and  peeling,  showed  where  the  pictures  of  the 
stations  of  the  Cross  had  hung;  with  them  all  draperies  had  been 
stripped  away  and  hidden.  The  crimson-velvet-covered  ropes 
that  had  done  duty  instead  of  altar-rails  had  been  removed,  their 
brass  supports  unscrewed  from  the  floor.  The  naked  altar- 
stone  was  covered  with  fragments  of  cheap  stained-glass  from 
the  little  east  window  of  which  the  Sisters  had  been  so  proud. 
The  Tabernacle  gaped  empty;  sandy,  reddish-grey  dust  filled 
the  tiny  piscina,  and  lay  thick  upon  the  altar-stone  and  the 
shallow  wooden  altar-steps,  and  wherever  else  the  rain  had  not 
reached  it  to  turn  it  into  yellow  mud. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  445 

Why  had  she  come  here?  Because  she  felt  as  though  the 
Presence  that  had  housed  her  under  the  veil  of  the  Element 
were  still  guarding  Its  descrated  home.  And  near  the  door  of 
the  tiny  sacristy  dangled  the  rope  communicating  with  the  bell 
that  hung  as  yet  uninjured  in  the  little  wooden  cupola  upon 
the  roof.  The  bell  could  be  rung,  should  need  arise.  She  did 
not  formulate  in  thought  what  need.  But  the  recollection  of 
those  poisonous  viper-eyes  stirred  even  in  that  proud,  dauntless 
woman's  bosom  a  cold  and  creeping  fear.  And  when  she  heard 
the  padding,  stealthy  footsteps  whose  sound  seemed  burned  in 
upon  her  brain,  traversing  the  soaked  matting  of  the  corridor, 
she  caught  her  breath,  and  an  icy  dew  of  anguish  moistened 
her  shuddering  flesh. 

Then  slowly  the  door-handle  turned.  He  came  in,  shutting 
it  noiselessly  after  him.  It  was  the  man  she  had  seen  loafing 
by  the  lamp-post.  And,  standing  tall  and  forbidding  on  the 
bare  altar's  uncarpeted  step,  she  threw  out  her  hand  in  a  quick, 
imperious  gesture,  forbidding  his  nearer  approach. 

For  an  instant  the  dignity  and  authority  of  the  tall,  black- 
robed  figure  gave  pause  even  to  Bough.  Then  he  touched  his 
wide-brimmed  felt  hat  to  her  with  a  civility  that  was  the  very 
pith  of  insolence,  and  took  it  off  and  shook  the  wet  from  it, 
and  dropped  it  back  upon  his  head  again.  He  leaned  against 
the  wall  by  the  door  where  there  was  a  little  holy-water  font, 
and  stuck  his  gross,  squat  thumbs  in  his  belt,  and  waited  for  her 
to  begin.  Always  did  that  when  the  woman  was  angry.  Noth- 
ing remained  for  any  bloke  to  teach  Bough  about  the  sex.  You 
let  her  row  a  bit,  and  when  she  had  done  herself  out,  you  put 
in  what  you  had  got  to  say.  That  was  Bough's  way  with  them 
always. 

"  You  have  written  letters  to  me  and  followed  me." 

His  grinning  red  mouth  and  tobacco-stained  teeth  showed 
in  the  beard.  He  looked  at  her  and  waited. 

"Why  have  you  done  this?  And,  now  that  you  have 
brought  yourself  into  my  sight,  quitting  the  safe  shelter  of  dark- 
ness and  anonymity,  what  is  to  hinder  me  from  handing  you 
over  to  those  who  administer  and  enforce  Martial  Law  in  this 
town,  and  will  deal  with  you  as  you  deserve?  " 

His  light  eyes  glittered.  His  teeth  showed  again  in  the  brown 
bush.  He  spat  upon  the  floor  of  the  sacred  place,  and  answered : 

"  That's  all  blow.  How  do  I  know  what  you  mean  about 
writing  letters  and  following?  Who  has  seen  me  doing  it? 
Not  one  of  the  mob.  I'm  just  a  man  that  has  come  in  off  the 


446  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

road  out  of  the  rain.  Maybe  I  have  no  business  in  this  crib. 
That's  for  you  to  say.  .  .  .  Maybe  I  have  a  message  for  some- 
body you  know.  So  you  don't  choose  to  give  it,  then  that's  for 
her  to  hear." 

He  swung  about  in  pretended  haste,  and  laid  his  hand  upon 
the  door. 

"  Stop,"  she  said,  with  white  lips.  "  You  will  not  molest 
the  person  to  whom  you  refer.  You  will  give  your  message — 
if  it  be  one — to  me,  and  to  to  me  alone." 

"  High  and  mighty,"  the  ugly,  wordless  smile  that  faced 
round  on  her  again  seemed  to  say.  "  But  in  a  little  I'll  bring 
you  down  off  that.  .  .  ."  He  spat  again  upon  the  Chapel 
floor,  and  scratched  his  head  under  his  hat,  and  began,  like  a 
simple,  good-natured  fellow,  a  rough  miner  with  a  heart  of 
gold: 

"  No  offence  is  meant,  lady,  and  why  should  it  be  taken?  " 

She  seemed  to  grow  in  height  as  she  folded  her  arms  in  their 
flowing  black  sleeves,  and  looked  down  upon  him  silently.  The 
boiling  whirlpool  in  her  breast  mounted  as  it  spun,  stifling  her. 
But  she  was  outwardly  calm.  He  went  smoothly  on,  with  an 
occasional  display  of  red  mouth  and  grinning  teeth  in  the  big 
beard,  and  always  that  baleful  glitter  in  his  strange  light  eyes. 

"  I'm  a  man  that,  in  the  goodness  of  his  heart,  is  always 
doing  jobs  for  other  people,  and  never  getting  thanked  for  it. 
I  started  to  push  my  way  up  here,  two  hundred  miles  from 
Diamond  Town,  three  weeks  back,  with  a  letter  from  a  woman 
to  her  husband.  She  couldn't  pay  me  nothing,  poor  old  girl. 
Said  she'd  pray  for  me  to  her  dying  day.  There  was  a  pal  of 
mine  put  up  the  grubstake.  His  name  " — his  evil  eyes  were 
glued  upon  her  face — "was  Bough.  You've  heard  that  name 
before?" 

It  was  an  assertion,  not  a  question.  The  fierce  rush  of  crim- 
son to  her  brow,  and  the  flame  that  leaped  into  her  eyes,  had 
already  spoken  to  her  knowledge.  She  was  deadly  quiet,  gather- 
ing all  her  superb  forces  for  a  sudden  lioness-spring.  He  went 
on: 

"  He's  a  widower  now,  Bough,  and  well-to-do.  Getting  on 
for  rich.  Got  religion  too,  highly  respected.  Says  Bough  to 
me,  '  There's  a  young  woman  at  the  Convent  at  Gueldersdorp 
that's  not  the  sort  for  holy,  praying  ladies  to  have  under  their 
roof,  for  all  the  glib  slack-jaw  she  may  have  given  them.' " 

Her  great  eyes  burned  on  him. 

"  Say  what  you  have  to  say,  and  be  brief.    Go  on." 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  447 

He  shifted  from  one  foot  to  the  other,  and  licked  his  fleshy 
lips. 

"  I've  got  to  tell  the  story  my  own  way,  lady.  Don't  you 
quarrel  with  it.  Says  Bough :  '  They  picked  her  up  on  the  veld 
seven  years  ago,  a  runaway  in  rags.  As  pretty  a  girl  she  was,' 
says  he,  '  as  you'd  see  in  a  month's  trek,  and  from  what  I  hear 
they've  made  a  lady  of  her.'  " 

Still  silent  and  watchful,  and  her  eyes  upon  him,  searching 
him,  he  went  on: 

' '  However  the  years  have  changed  her,'  says  Bough,  '  you'll 
spot  her  by  her  little  feet  and  hands,  and  her  slender  shape,  and 
her  big  eyes,  like  yellow  diamonds,  and  her  hair,  the  colour  of 
dried  tobacco-leaf  in  the  sun.  .  .  .' " 

She  quivered  in  every  limb,  and  longed  to  shut  her  eyes  and 
shut  out  the  intolerable  sight  of  him,  leering  and  lying  there. 
Had  she  not  interrupted,  she  must  have  cried  out.  She 
said  : 

"  You  tell  me  this  man  Bough  is  at  Diamond  Town?" 

"  I  said  he  was  there  when  I  left.  The  young  woman  he 
talked  of  was  brought  up  at  his  place  in  Orange  River  Colony, 
a  nice  respectable  boarding-house  and  hotel  for  travelling 
families  on  the  veld  between  Driepoort  and  Kroonfontein. 
Bough  was  good  to  the  girl,  and  so  was  his  wife,  that's  dead 
since.  Uncommon!  Not  that  they  had  much  of  the  dibs  to 
spend  in  those  days.  But,  being  an  honest  Christian  man, 
Bough  treated  the  girl  like  his  own.  And  right  down  bad  she 
served  him." 

He  licked  his  thick  lips  again,  and  the  flattish,  light-hued 
viper-eyes  glittered. 

"  There  was  a  bloke  that  used  to  hang  around  the  place — 
kind  of  coloured  loafer,  with  Dutch  blood,  overgiven  to  Square- 
face  and  whisky.  He  got  going  gay  with  the  girl " 

She  stood  like  a  statue  of  ebony  and  ivory.  Only  by  the  deep 
breaths  that  heaved  her  broad  bosom  could  you  tell  she  lived — t 
by  that  and  by  the  unswerving  watchfulness  of  those  burning 
eyes. 

"  And  Bough,  when  he  caught  them  together,  got  mad,  being 
a  respectable  man,  and  let  her  taste  the  sjambok.  Then  she 
ran  away." 

He  coughed,  and  shifted  again  from  one  foot  to  the  other. 
He  would  have  preferred  a  woman  who  had  loaded  him  with 
invectives,  and  told  him  that  he  lied  like  hell. 

"  The  man  that  had  left  her  to  Bough's  guardianship  was 


448  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

a  sort  of  broken-down  English  officer  by  the  name  of  Mil- 
dare " 

Her  bosom  heaved  more  stormily,  but  her  intense  scorch- 
ing regard  of  him  never  wavered. 

"  — Mildare.  He  left  a  hundred  pounds  with  Bough,  to  be 
kept  for  her  till  she  was  twenty.  There  was  a  waggon  and 
team  Bough  was  to  have  had  to  sell,  and  use  the  money  for  the 
girl's  keep,  but  a  thief  of  a  Dutch  driver  waltzed  with  them — 
took  'em  up  Johannesburg  way,  and  melted  'em  into 
dollars.  Bough  got  nothing  for  all  his  kindness — not 
a  tikkie.  But  he's  ready  to  hand  over  the  hundred,  her 
being  so  nigh  come  of  age.  There's  a  locket  with  a  picture  in 
it,  and  brilliants  round,  that  may  be  worth  seventy  pounds 
more.  All  Bough  wants  is  to  do  the  square  thing.  This  is  the 
message  he  sends  to  her  now.  The  money  and  the  jewels  will 
be  handed  over,  as  in  duty  bound;  and,  since  she's  turned  re- 
spectable and  got  education,  I  was  to  say  there's  an  honest  man 
— widower  now,  and  well  off — that's  ready  to  hang  up  his  hat 
for  her,  and  wipe  all  old  scores  off  the  slate  in  the  regular  de- 
cent way.  .  .  ." 

She  said  in  tones  that  were  of  ice: 

"  Bough  is  the  honest  man?  " 

"  Just  Bough.  ...  '  Maybe,  in  my  honest  anger  at  her 
goings  on,'  he  says,  '  I  went  a  bit  too  far.  Well!  I'm  ready 
to  make  amends  by  making  her  my  wife.'  " 

The  lioness  crouched  and  leaped. 

"  You  are  Bough !  You  are  the  evil  man,  the  servant,  of 
Satan,  who  wrought  abomination  upon  a  helpless  child !  " 

The  onslaught  came  so  suddenly  that  he  was  staggered.  Then 
he  swore. 

"Not  me,  by  G !" 

She  pointed  her  long  arm  at  him,  and  some  strange  force 
seemed  to  be  wielded  by  that  unweaponed  woman-hand  that 
struck  him  and  pierced  him  through  flesh  and  bone  and  mar- 
row. .  .  . 

"You  are  the  man!"  She  stretched  her  arms  to  the  wild, 
hurrying  clouds  that  looked  in  upon  her  through  the  yawning 
rifts  in  the  roof,  and  called  upon  her  Maker  for  vengeance. 
"  How  long  wilt  Thou  delay,  O  Lord,  righteous  in  judgment? 
Fulfil  Thy  promise!  Bind  Thou  Thy  millstone  about  the  neck 
of  this  wretch,  hated  and  accursed  of  Thee,  and  let  it  drag  him 
to  the  uttermost  depths  of  the  Lake  of  Fire,  where  such  as  he 
shall  wallow  and  howl  throughout  Eternity !  " 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  449 

She  was  infinitely  more  terrible  than  the  lioness  who  has 
licked  her  murdered  cubs.  No  Pythoness  at.  the  dizziest  height 
of  the  sacred  frenzy,  no  Demeter  wrought  to  delirium  by  ma- 
ternal bereavement,  was  ever  imagined  by  poet  or  painter  as 
half  so  grand,  and  terrible,  and  awe-inspiring,  as  this  furious 
cursing  nun. 

"  — Delay  not  Thou,  O  Lord !  "  she  prayed.  .  .  . 

Rain  fell  in  a  curtain-  of  gleaming  crystal  rods  between  them. 
Seen  through  it,  she  appeared  supernaturally  tall,  her  garments 
streaming  like  black  flames,  her  face  a  white-hot  furnace,  her 
eyes  intolerable,  merciless,  grey  lightnings,  her  voice  a  fiery 
sword  that  cleft  the  guilty  to  the  soul. 

The  Voice  of  Conscience  was  dumb  in  him.  He  knew  no- 
remorse,  and  made  a  jest  of  God.  But  his  callous  heart  had 
been  filled  from  the  veins  of  generations  of  Irish  Catholic  peas- 
ants, and,  in  spite  of  himself,  the  blood  in  his  veins  ran  cold 
with  superstitious  fear. 

Yet,  when  no  palpable  answer  came  from  that  Heaven  to 
which  she  cried,  he  rallied,  remembering  that,  after  all,  she 
was  a  woman,  and  alone  with  him  in  the  place.  She  had  sunk 
back  against  the  altar  that  was  behind  her.  Her  eyes  were 
closed,  her  face  a  white  mask  of  anguish ;  she  looked  as  though 
about  to  swoon.  Bough  hailed  the  symptoms  as  favourable. 
Fainting  was  the  prelude  to  caving  in,  with  the  women  he 
knew.  But  when  he  stirred,  her  eyes  were  wide  and  preter- 
naturally  bright,  and  held  him.  He  snarled: 

"  You'll  not  take  the  girl  my  message,  then?  " 

She  reared  up  her  tall  form,  and  laughed  awfully. 

"  Did  you  dream  I  would  defile  her  ears  with  it?  Now 
that  I  know  you,  you  will  be  wise  to  leave  this  place;  for  it  is 
a  spot  where  your  sins  will  find  you  out." 

He  jeered : 

"That  flash  bounce  doesn't  go  down  with  me.  The 
trouble'll  be  at  your  end  of  the  house,  unless  you  listen  to  rea- 
son and  stop  giving  off  hot  air.  What's  to  hinder  me  making 
a  clean  breast  to  that  swell  toff  she's  wheedled  into  asking  her 
to  marry  him.  What's  to  hinder  me  from  standing  up  before 
the  whole  mob,  saying  as  I've  repented  what  I  done  years  back, 
and  I've  come  to  make  an  honest  girl  of  her  at  last?" 

The  whirling  waters  of  bitterness  in  her  breast  were  rising, 
drowning  her.  .  .  .  He  realized  her  momentary  weakness, 
and  moved  a  step  or  two  nearer,  keeping  well  between  the 
woman  and  the  door. 


450  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"What's  to  hinder  me,  I  say?  " 

Her  rapier  of  keen  womanly  intuition  flashed  out  at  him 
again,  and  drew  the  blood. 

"Your  fear  will  hinder  you.  You  are  here  in  an  assumed 
character,  and  under  a  false  name."  The  long  arm  shot  out, 
the  white  hand  pointed  at  him  again.  "You  never  came  here 
from  Diamond  Town.  That  letter  was  a  forgery.  You  have 
papers  on  you  now  that  would  prove  you  to  be  a  spy,  if  you 
were  taken.  Ah,  I  can  see  it  written  in  your  coward's  face!  " 

The  devil  was  at  the  woman's  ear,  prompting  her.  Or  was 
ft ?  Bough's  dark,  full-blooded  face  bleached  to  muddy- 
pale  as  her  terrible  voice  rang  through  the  desolate  place,  and 
echoed  among  the  broken  rafters. 

"  You  boast  yourself  ready  to  admit  your  infamy.  You 
shall  be  compelled!  Everything  shall  be  made  known!  I  will 
go  to  Lord  Beauvayse  now,  and  tell  him  all — all!  And  if  he 
loves  her,  he  will  marry  her.  And  you  who  have  secrets  upon 
your  soul  even  more  perilous,  if  less  vile  and  hideous  " — again 
the  terrible  hand  pointed,  and  that  sense  of  a  supernatural  force 
that  it  wielded  knocked  his  knees  together  and  dried  up  his 
mouth — "  I  see  the  mill-stone  round  your  neck!  .  .  ." 

The  clarion  voice  mounted  on  a  great  note  of  triumph.  With 
her  inspired  face,  and  with  her  floating  veil,  she  looked  like  a 
Prophetess  of  old.  "  The  Lord  is  not  mocked !  He  will  avenge 
His  little  one  as  He  has  promised !  Move  aside,  you  lost,  and 
branded,  and  miserable  wretch!  Do  you  think  to  hinder  Me 
from  doing  what  I  have  said  ?  " 

He  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  altar-steps  as  the  tall,  Imperious 
figure  came  sweeping  down.  The  curtain  of  rain  no  longer 
fell  between  them,  but  behind  him.  He  must  silence  that  rail- 
ing voice  that  cried  in  the  house-tops — put  out  the  light  of 
those  intolerable  eyes.  .  .  . 

He  drew  out  his  revolver  with  a  blasphemous  oath.  At  the 
gleam  of  steel  in  the  thickening  twilight  she  dropped  her  up- 
raised arms,  and  made  a  swift  rush  to  the  rope  of  the  bell,  and 
set  it  clanging.  Two  double  strokes  rang  out;  the  third  was 
broken  in  the  middle.  .  .  .  For  as  she  swung  round,  panting 
and  tugging  at  the  rope,  he  shot  her  in  the  back  above  the  line 
of  the  white  gorget  from  which  the  veil  streamed  aside,  and 
ran  to  the  door  as  she  cried  out  and  swayed  forward,  still  cling- 
ing to  the  vibrating  rope,  and  turned  there  and  fired  a  second 
shot,  that  struck  her  in  the  body. 

Then  he  was  gone,  and  the  walls  were  crowding  in  on  her 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  451 

to  crush  her,  and  then  receding  to  immeasurable  distances,  and 
the  blood  and  air  from  her  pierced  lungs  bubbled  through  the 
bullet-holes  in  the  serge  stuff  and  the  scorched  linen. 

She  stumbled  a  few  steps  blindly,  then  fell  and  lay  choking^ 
with  that  strange  gurgling  and  whispering  in  her  ears,  the  rush- 
ing blood  mingling  with  the  water  of  the  puddles  that  the  rain 
had  made  upon  the  littered  floor.  She  faltered  out  the  name  of 
her  Master  and  Spouse,  and  commended  her  pure  soul  to  Him 
in  utter  humility.  Death  would  have  been  a  welcome  loosing 
of  her  bonds  but  for  the  Beloved  left  behind,  at  the  mercy  of 
the  merciless. 

The  stab  of  that  remembrance  lent  her  strength  fo  struggle 
up  upon  her  knees.  Ah,  cruel!  cruel!  .  .  .  But  she  must 
submit.  Was  it  not  the  Holy  Will?  She  signed  the  Cross 
upon  her  bosom,  with  fingers  already  growing  stiff,  and  made 
a  piteous  little  act  of  charity,  forgiving  the  sin  of  the  man 
against  herself,  but  not  his  crime  against  dead  Richard's  child. 
And  she  stretched  out  long  black-sleeved  arms  gropingly  in 
the  thick,  numbing  darkness  that  hemmed  her  in,  and  moaned 
to  the  Mother  of  the  motherless  to  have  pity!  .  .  .  pity!  .  .  . 

She  swayed  forwards  then,  like  a  stately  falling  column,  and 
lay  with  outspread  arms  upon  the  altar-step. 

"  Jesu.  .  .  .     Mary.  ...     The  child!  .  .  ." 

The  sacred  names  were  stifled  in  her  blood.  The  last  two 
words  were  nearly  her  last.  sigh.  Thenceforward  there  was  no 
sound  at  all  in  the  Convent  chapel,  save  the  dull  splash  of  rain, 
falling  through  the  holes  in  the  broken  roof  upon  th?  sodden 
floor,  where  the  dead  woman  lay,  face  downwards.  .  f  . 


LII 

No  one  had  heeded  the  revolver-shot.  The  detonation  of  one 
cartridge  when  a  bombardment  is  going  on,  what  does  it  count 
for?  And  yet,  when  the  burly  figure  of  the  runner  from  Dia- 
mond Town  slipped  out  of  the  Convent  doorway  and  stole 
across  the  rubbish-littered  garden,  and  crossed  the  veld  towards 
the  native  town,  it  had  been  barely  twilight — a  twilight  of  pelt- 
ing tropical  rain,  to  be  sure.  Still,  in  it  he  had  encountered 
those  who  might  have  suspected  afterwards.  .  .  . 

Perhaps  it  would  have  been  better  had  he  stopped  in  Guel- 
dersdorp  and  mugged  it  out.  But  that  sharp,  prompt,  swift, 
unsparing  thing  called  Martial  Law  is  not  a  power  to  play  with 


452  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

•with  impunity,  and  of  the  man  who  wielded  it  in  Gueldersdorp 
Bough  had  conceived  a  wholesome  dread.  Best  that  he  fled, 
although  his  going  tagged  him  with  suspicion.  That  cursed 
stupid  game  of  his  with  the  telephone  at  the  Headquarters  of 
the  Baraland  Rifles  might  cost  him  more  than  the  bit  of  twist 
with  which  he  had  bribed  the  orderly,  left  for  a  moment  in  sole 
charge,  and  demoralized  by  the  sight  of  tobacco. 

Opium  played  you  tricks  like  that,  when,  for  the  gratifica- 
tion of  a  sinister  whim,  a  grotesque  fancy,  born  and  bred  of  the 
stuff,  you  would  risk  everything.  In  excess  it  played  hell  with 
the  nerves.  That,  was  why  those  eyes  of  hers.  .  .  .  Damn 
them !  Why  couldn't  a  man  put  them  out  of  mind  and  out  of 
sight? 

It  was  not  to  be  done.  The  obsession  held  him.  A  black 
shadow  on  the  floor  would  be  the  tall  body,  lying  face  down- 
wards on  the  altar-steps,  with  outspread,  crucified  arms.  He 
heard  her  stifled  crying  upon  the  Name,  and  the  gurgling  out- 
rush  of  mingled  air  and  blood  that  followed  each  deep  sob  for 
breath.  .  .  . 

And  then  he  would  be  running  through  the  lashing,  bucket- 
ing wet,  circumventing  the  sentry-posts,  wriggling  over  the 
veld  on  his  belly  like  a  snake.  He  would  be  pushing  through 
the  dripping  covert  of  the  north  bank  of  the  river — for  that, 
he  had  decided,  was  the  safest  way  out  or  in — leaving  frag- 
ments of  his  garments  on  the  thorny  cacti  that  grabbed  at  him 
with  their  green  hands.  And  then  he  would  find  himself  lying 
doggo  between  two  great  stones,  waiting  for  it  to  be  quite  dark 
before  he  essayed  to  pass  the  rifle-pits  that  angled  across  each 
shore.  Two  hours  he  had  lain  so,  and  it  had  hailed,  and  sheet 
lightning  had  smitten  greenish-blue  glares  from  the  hissing, 
clattering  whiteness,  and  he  had  remembered  with  a  shudder 
|  those  eyes.  .  .  . 

Then  it  had  been  dark  enough  to  risk  passing  between  the 
.angles  of  the  rifle-pits,  where  lay  men  who  kept  their  eyes 
jskinned  and  their  weapons  handy  by  day  and  night.  And  again 
Bough  had  wriggled  like  a  snake,  but  through  shallow  water 
instead  of  grass  and  red  sand.  He  had  swum  the  deep  pools, 
and  once  got  entangled  in  barbed  wire,  and  went  under,  gur- 
gling and  drowning,  three  times  before  he  wrenched  himself 
loose.  It  had  seemed  as  though  a  dead  woman's  hands  had 
seized  him,  and  were  dragging  him  down.  But  he  tore  free 
and  passed  safely.  There  was  not  a  single  shot — the  Devil  was 
so  obliging!  And  then,  lest  Bronnckers'  pickets  should  mistake 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  453 

a  friend  in  the  darkness,  he  waited  for  light  in  a  little  thorny 
kloof  beyond  their  advanced  outposts;  and  the  dawn  came, 
with  an  awful  gush  of  crimson  dyeing  all  the  eastern  sky, 
so  that  the  pools  about  his  feet — even  the  drops  of  wet  upon 
the  stones  and  bushes — caught  the  ruddy  reflection,  and  all  the 
world  seemed  dripping  with  new-shed  blood. 

Then  up  had  rushed  the  sun,  and  smitten  a  glorious  rainbow 
out  of  fog  and  vapour,  and  one  end  of  it  seemed  to  be  in  Guel- 
dersdorp,  resting  in  a  golden  mist  upon  the  Convent's  shattered 
roof,  while  the  other  vanished  in  mid-heaven.  It  had  seemed 
to  the  murderer  like  a  ladder  by  which  the  dead  woman's  soul 
went  climbing,  up  and  up,  to  tell  his  crime  to  God. 

He  had  killed  her,  that  woman  in  black,  to  stop  her  from 
blowing  on  him.  Who  would  have  dreamed  a  meek,  sober  nun 
could  be  transformed  like  that?  A  lioness  whose  cub  has  been 
shot  straightway  becomes  a  beast-devil.  She,  standing  on  the 
naked  steps  of  the  bare  altar,  with  upraised,  black-sleeved  arms 
and  black  funereal  robes,  demanding  Heaven's  vengeance  for 
that,  deed  of  old,  calling  down  the  judgment  of  God  upon  its 
doer,  had  been  infinitely  more  terrible  than  the  lioness.  Light- 
ning had  flashed  from  her  great  eyes,  and  subtle  electric  forces 
had  darted  from  her  outspread  finger-tips.  While  she  looked 
at  him  and  spoke  she  enmeshed  him,  helpless,  in  a  net  of  terror. 
It  was  only  when  she  had  turned  her  back  that  Bough  had  had 
the  nerve  to  shoot.  And  he  was  no  novice  in  bloodshed — not  he. 
There  were  things  safely  hidden  and  put  away  and  buried  that 
might  some  day  put  a  rope  round  some  man's  neck.  But  the 
man  would  never  be  Bough.  There  had  always  been  a  scape- 
goat to  suffer  until  now. 

He  ate  more  opium  now  than  ever,  because  he  could  not 
forget  that  woman's  awful  eyes.  He  would  see  them  looking 
at  him  in  the  dark,  when  he  could  not  sleep.  Her  voice  haunted 
him,  terrible  in  its  clarion-note  of  wrath,  its  organ-roll  of  de- 
nunciation. The  hand  that  had  pointed  to  the  millstone  about 
his  neck  had  conjured  it  there.  He  felt  it  dragging  him  down. 

Maar — that  was  gold!  You  can  carry  a  goodly  amount  of 
the  precious  metal  upon  your  single  person,  if  you  are  clever 
enough  to  stow  it  and  muscular  enough  to  walk  lightly  under 
the  weight.  And  a  great  deal  of  the  yellow  stuff,  gathered 
and  stored  by  the  mining  companies,  leaked  about  this  time 
cut  of  the  hiding-places  skilfully  contrived  for  it  into  the 
pockets  of  Van  Busch  and  his  pals.  It  is  weighty,  as  well  as 
precious,  stuff,  and  when  you  inter  it,  there  must,  be  bearers 


454  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

as  well  as  a  gravedigger,  and  when  you  carry  away  a  great 
deal  of  it  at  a  time,  confederates  must  aid  you. 

Oom  Paul,  when,  like  some  elderly  black  humble-bee,  with 
crooked  thighs  deep  laden  with  the  metallic  yellow  pollen,  he 
buzzed  heavily  off  for  Lorenzo  Marques,  deplored  the  deceit- 
fulness  of  riches  less  bitterly  than  their  nonportability. 

Van  Busch,  by  a  series  of  clever  expedients,  overcame  that 
difficulty.  The  cartridges  that  weighed  down  his  bandolier 
were  of  cast  gold,  cleverly  painted;  the  gun  he  carried  was  a 
hollow  sham  packed  with  raw  gold;  also,  his  garments  were 
lined  and  padded  with  the  same  material.  At  Cape  Town  he 
would  disburden  himself,  and  one  of  the  women  who  were  his 
confederates  would  take  the  stuff  to  England,  and  sell  it  in 
London,  and  bank  the  money  in  the  name  of  Van  Busch.  He 
so  managed  that  there  was  always  a  woman  coming  and  a 
woman  going.  Women  had  been  his  tools,  and  his  slaves,  and 
his  victims,  ever  since  he  had  been  born.  When  the  old  were 
worn  out  and  useless,  he  shook  them  off,  and  fresh  instruments 
rose  up  to  take  their  places. 

He  never  trusted  men  in  money  matters.  He  knew  too  much 
of  the  power  of  that  yellow  pollen  that  breeds  madness  in  the 
male.  But  there  is  one  thing  that  most  women  desire  more 
than  possession  of  much  money,  and  that  is  absolute  possession 
of  one  man. 

Bough  understood  women  of  a  certain  class.  He  had  moulded 
them  to  his  will,  and  bent  them  to  his  whim,  all  his  life  long. 
He  was  a  man  of  manifold  experience  as  regards  the  sex. 

Lately  he  had  added  to  his  stock.  He  had  stood  face  to 
face  with  a  woman,  unarmed  and  in  a  lonely  place,  and  had 
tasted  Fear.  He  had  seen — from  afar  off — a  woman  whose 
slight,  vivid  beauty  had  roused  in  him  a  desire  that  was  tor- 
ture. 

It  was  the  monster  of  Frankenstein  in  love  with  Clytie;  it 
was  Caliban  thirsting  for  the  beauty  of  Miranda.  Prospero 
had  not  come  in  time;  the  satyr  had  surfeited  upon  the  unripe 
grapes,  and  now  was  ahungered  for  the  purple  cluster,  tied  up 
out  of  reach  of  those  gross,  greedy,  wicked  hands. 

The  locket  with  a  picture  in  it  and  brilliants  round,  "  that 
might  be  worth  seventy,"  the  dainty,  pearly  miniature,  an  ivory 
by  Daudin,  of  the  dead  woman  who  lay  buried  under  the  little 
Kopje,  and  which  Bough  had  taken  from  the  body  of  the  Eng- 
lish traveller,  together  with  the  signet-ring  and  everything  else 
of  value  that  Richard  Mildare  had  owned,  possessed  a  strange 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  455 

fascination  for  the  thief.  It  was  extraordinarily  like.  .  .  .  He 
hung  it  by  its  slender  gold  chain  about  his  thick  neck,  and 
gloated  over  and  grudged  the  beauty  that  it  recalled. 

It  is  horrible  to  speak  of  love  in  connection  with  the  man 
Bough,  but  if  ever  he  had  known  it,  it  was  now.  His  victim 
of  old  time  had  become  his  tyrant.  Replete  with  vile  pleas- 
ures, he  longed  for  her  the  more. 

He  even  became  sentimental  at  times,  telling  himself  that 
all  he  had  sought  was  to  repair  the  wrong,  and  make  an  honest 
woman  of  the  Kid.  She  should  have  been  lapped  in  luxury, 
worn  jewels  equalling  any  duchess's.  He  was  a  man  of  money 
now.  A  little  delay,  to  become  yet  more  rich  and  arrange  for 
the  safe  burying  of  Bough — then  Van  Busch,  of  Johannesburg, 
capitalist  and  financier,  would  descend  upon  London  in  a  shower 
of  gold,  furnish  a  house  in  Hyde  Park  or  Mayfair  in  topping 
style;  own  four-in-hands,  and  motor-cars,  and  opera-boxes,  and 
see  all  Society  fluttering  to  his  feet,  to  pick  up  scattered  crumbs 
of  the  golden  pudding. 

It  really  seemed  as  though  the  dream  would  be  realized.  The 
gross,  squarely-built  man,  with  the  bushy  whiskers  and  the  light 
strange  eyes,  found  success  attend  his  every  enterprise  from 
that  hour  in  which  he  had  spilt  the  life  upon  the  pavement  of 
the  Convent  chapel.  The  tarantula-pounce  never  missed  a  prey. 
Every  knavish  venture  brought  in  money  or  money's  worth, 
every  base  plot  was  carried  through  triumphantly.  Bough, 
alias  Van  Busch,  was  not  ordinarily  a  superstitious  man,  but 
his  run  of  luck  made  him  almost  afraid  at  times. 

He  scented  the  Relief  before  the  besiegers  undertook  to 
scout  for  Young  Eybel  in  the  direction  of  Diamond  Town, 
and  ingeniously  warned  Colonel  Cullings  of  a  Boer  plan  for 
cutting  off  the  Flying  Column  on  the  scorching  western  plains, 
which  resulted  in  the  capture  of  two  waggon-loads  of  burghers, 
their  rations,  ammunition,  and  Mausers — a  most  satisfying 
haul.  He  placed  before  the  leader  of  the  British  Force  inter- 
cepted telegrams  which  threw  invaluable  light  on  Dutch  moves. 
No  more  single-minded,  ingenious,  and  patriotic  British  South 
African  ever  drew  breath  than  Mr.  Van  Busch,  of  Johannes- 
burg. And  verily  he  reaped  his  reward,  in  an  officially  counter- 
signed railway  pass,  which  would  enable  the  patriot  to  render 
some  further  services  to  British  arms,  and  a  great  many  more 
to  Van  Busch,  of  Johannesburg. 

He  had  his  knavish  headquarters  still  at  the  Border  home- 
stead known  as  Haargrond  Plaats.  Something  drew  him  back 


456  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

to  the  place,  and  kept  on  drawing  him.  From  thence  he  could 
observe  and  conduct  his  operations,  and  gather  news  of  the 
besieged  in  Gueldersdorp.  He  was  there  at  the  time  when  the 
Division — Irregular  Horse  and  Baraland  Rifles,  converted, 
with  a  half  battalion  of  Town  Guards,  into  mounted  infantry 
by  the  simple  process  of  putting  beasts  underneath  men  who 
could  ride  them — marched  out  of  Gueldersdorp  en  route  for 
Frostenberg. 

The  slatternly  Dutchwoman  and  the  coloured  man  who  had 
charge  of  the  Plaats  were  too  surely  his  creatures  to  betray 
Bough  Van  Busch.  "  Let  them  smell  around  the  place,"  he 
thought,  when  by  the  sounds  that  reached  him  in  his  hiding- 
place  he  knew  the  Advance  had  halted.  "  They'll  tire  of  the 
game  before  they  smell  out  me  I  " 

His  hiding-place  was  a  safe  retreat  and  storehouse  for  stuff 
that  it  was  necessary  to  conceal.  No  one  knew  of  it  save  Bough 
Van  Busch  and  the  draggle-tailed  woman.  It  was  in  the  great 
stone-built  chimney  of  the  disused,  half-ruined  farmhouse 
kitchen,  a  solid  cube  of  masonry  reared  by  the  stout  hands  of 
the  old  voortrekkers  of  1836,  its  walls,  three  feet  in  thickness, 
embracing  the  wide  hearth  about  which  the  family  life  of  the 
homestead  had  concentrated  itself  in  the  past. 

There  may  have  been  a  mill  on  the  farm  in  the  old  days. 
Or  possibly,  meaning  to  build  one,  those  friendly  pioneers  of 
the  Second  Exodus  had  dragged  the  two  huge  stones  into  the 
wilderness,  and  then  abandoned  their  plan.  The  lower  mill- 
stone paved  the  hearth,  the  upper,  the  diameter  of  its  shaft-hole, 
increased  by  chipping  to  the  size  of  a  muskmelon,  had  been  set 
by  some  freak  of  the  farmer-architect's  heavy  fancy  as  a  coping 
on  the  top  of  the  big  stone  shaft.  From  thence,  as  Lady  Han- 
nah Wrynche  had  said  in  one  of  her  descriptive  letters,  dated 
from  "  My  Headquarters  at  the  Seat  of  War,"  it  dominated 
the  landscape  as  a  Brobdingnagian  stone  mushroom  might  have 
done. 

The  wide  black  throat  of  the  chimney  half-way  up  was 
choked  by  a  platform  of  beams  and  masonry,  reaching  not  quite 
across,  so  that  even  a  bulky  man  who  had  climbed  up — divers 
rusty  iron  stanchions  driven  in  between  the  stones,  and  certain 
chinks  affording  secure  foothold — might  wriggle  between  the 
platform  and  the  chimney-wall,  and  so  lie  hid  securely.  Through 
the  hole  in  the  round  stone  above  came  air  and  light.  Crevices 
cunningly  enlarged  afforded  opportunities  for  viewing  the  sur- 
rounding country  as  for  seeing  without  being  seen,  and  hearing 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  457 

also  all  that  took  place  in  the  low-walled  courtyard  that  was 
used  as  a  cattle-kraal.  You  had  also  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the 
lower  end  of  the  farm  kitchen,  where  the  wall  had  cracked, 
and  bulged,  and  spit  out  some  of  its  stones. 

To  this  eyrie  Bough  Van  Busch  retreated  when  the  wall  of 
dust  to  the  south-west  gave  up  the  dim  shapes  of  the  Advance, 
and  the  beat  of  many  iron-shod  hoofs,  and  the  roll  of  many 
iron-shod  wheels  made  distant  thunder,  coming  nearer,  always 
nearer.  .  .  . 

Maar!  How  the  trot  of  the  squadron-columns,  the  roll  of 
the  oncoming  batteries,  shook  the  crazy  building.  The  Advance 
rode  into  the  yard,  dismounted,  and  began  to  ask  questions  of 
the  coloured  man  and  the  slipshod  woman.  Neither  knew  any- 
thing. The  woman  cursed  the  Englishmen  freely,  at.  which 
they  laughed,  and  lighted  fresh  cigarettes.  The  man  was  dumb 
as  stone. 

The  Division  snaked  out  of  the  dust  presently,  a  huge  brown 
centipede  that  had  been  chopped  in  bits,  and  moved  with  inter- 
vals between  its  travelling  sections.  There  was  no  halt;  it  rolled 
on,  a  vision  of  innumerable  moving  legs  and  tanned,  wearied 
faces,  over  the  greening  veld  to  the  north.  The  dust  grew 
hotter  and  thicker,  and  more  stifling,  as  it  rolled. 

It  drifted  in  through  every  chink  and  cranny  in  the  great 
chimney,  with  the  smell  of  hot  human  flesh  and  sweating  horse- 
hide,  and  Bough  Van  Busch  longed  to,  but  dared  not  sneeze. 
Bits  of  mortar  fell  about  him,  and  dislodged  tarantulas  gal- 
loped over  his  boots.  He  shook  the  loathsome,  hairy,  bright- 
eyed  insects  off,  shuddering  at  them  with  a  loathing  somewhat 
misplaced,  considering  the  affinity  between  his  own  methods 
and  theirs. 

Roll,  roll,  roll!  The  English  voices  of  the  chatting  men 
crouched  upon  their  beasts'  withers  or  sprawling  on  the  limbers, 
the  trampling  and  snorting  of  the  horses,  the  sharp  signal- 
whistles  of  the  leaders,  the  curt  utterances  of  command,  mingled 
with  the  stream  of  thought  that  raced  through  the  busy  brain 
of  Bough  Van  Busch.  It  had  struck  him  when  the  Colonel 
and  his  Staff  rode  up  and  halted  by  the  gateway  of  the  littered 
courtyard  that  here  would  be  a  chance  for  a  nervy  man,  with  a 
set  purpose,  to  venture  back,  cleverly  disguised,  to  Guelders- 
dorp.  He  knew  he  would  be  risking  his  neck,  but  the  sting  of 
desire  galled  him  to  hardihood.  She  was  there.  Red  mist 
gathered  in  his  brain,  red  sparks  snapped  before  his  eyes,  the 
thick  red  blood  surged  fiercely  throughjiis  veins — drummed 


458  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

deafeningly  in  his  gross  ears  at  the  thought  of  seeing  her 
again.  .  .  . 

And  the  tail  of  the  Division  was  going  by.  A  Field  Tele- 
graph Company,  a  searchlight  company,  the  Ambulances,  and 
a  train  of  transport-waggons,  with  the  mounted  infantry 
brought  up  the  rear.  The  Advance  had  galloped  forward  in 
haste,  the  group  at  the  gate  lingered.  A  voice  rang  out  clearly, 
giving  some  order.  It  said : 

"  And  if  abandoned,  carry  out  instructions,  previously  warn- 
ing the  inmates  of  the  farm  to  retire  out  of " 

Tfoe  lean,  eagle-eyed,  keen-faced  Colonel  bent  lower  in  the 
saddle  to  reach  the  ear  of  the  dismounted  officer  of  Royal  En- 
gineers, who  stood  with  one  dogskin  gloved  hand  resting  on 
the  sweating  withers  of  the  brown  Waler.  He  answered, 
saluted,  and  drew  away.  Then  the  Staff  rode  on,  into  the 
ginger  yellow  dust-cloud,  leaving  the  officer  of  Engineers 
standing  in  the  beaten  tracks  of  many  iron-shod  hoofs  and  many 
iron-shod  wheels. 

He  was  not  left  alone.  A  little  cluster  of  mounted  Cape 
Police  had  detached  itself  from  the  rear  of  the  Division.  They 
were  deeply  burned,  hard-bitten  men,  emaciated  to  a  curious 
uniformity,  mounted  on  horses  as  gaunt  as  their  riders.  A 
sergeant  was  in  command  of  the  squad,  and  a  drab-painted 
wooden  cart  drawn  by  a  high-rumped,  goose-necked  chestnut 
mare,  pitifully  lame  on  the  near  fore,  had  an  Engineer  for 
driver.  His  mate  sat  on  the  rear  locker,  and  a  mounted  com- 
rade rode  by  the  mare's  lame  side.  The  shaft  of  the  cart  was 
lashed  to  a  ring  on  the  off-side  of  his  saddle,  and  thus  the  mare 
was  helped  along. 

Obeying  some  order  unheard  of  the  man  who  was  hiding 
in  the  old  stone  chimney,  the  party  of  Cape  Police  divided  into 
two.  One  half  patrolled  the  outward  precincts  of  the  home- 
stead. The  rest,  dismounting  in  the  courtyard,  thoroughly 
searched  the  place.  The  Engineer  officer  took  no  part  in  the 
search.  He  stood  by  the  stone-coloured  cart,  busy  at  the  locker, 
the  sapper  who  had  sat  upon  it  being  his  aid.  Very  soon  he 
returned  to  the  yard,  and  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  litter 
motionless  as  a  little  figure  of  pale,  dusty  bronze,  holding  a 
cigar-box  carefully  in  both  his  dogskin  gloved  hands.  In  spite 
of  his  patched  khaki  and  ragged  puttees  there  was  something 
dandified  about  him.  His  red  moustache,  waxed  to  a  fine  point, 
jutted  like  the  whiskers  of  a  watchful  cat,  the  whites  of  his 
eyes  gleamed  like  silver  as  he  turned  them  this  way  and  that, 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  459 

following  the  movements  of  the  men  who  went  in  and  out  of 
the  farm-buildings  as  directed  by  their  sergeant.  The  sergeant 
was  an  expert  in  his  business,  and  yet,  after  a  hasty  glance  up 
the  black,  yawning  gullet  of  the  chimney  where  Bough  Van 
Busch  lay  perdu,  he  had  gone  out  of  the  dismantled  kitchen 
whistling  a  tune.  Two  of  his  men  remained  lounging  near  the 
threshold.  Like  the  sergeant  they  had  stooped,  hands  on  spread 
knees,  necks  twisted  awry  in  the  effort  to  pierce  the  thick  murk 
beneath  the  ragged  arch  of  masonry  that  spanned  the  wide 
hearth  where  the  ashes  of  long-dead  fires  lay  in  powdery  grey 
drifts,  and,  like  the  sergeant,  had  seen  nothing.  When  you 
covered  the  man-hole  between  the  platform-edge  and  the  chim- 
ney-wall with  the  sooty  board  and  the  old  sack,  it  was  impossible 
for  anyone  below  to  see  anything.  The  inside  of  the  old  chimney 
was  as  black  as  hell. 

The  inquisition  ended.  The  khaki-clad  figures  came  hurry- 
ing out  of  the  house,  pursued  by  the  Dutchwoman's  shrill  re- 
criminations. The  non-commissioned  officer  made  a  report  to 
the  officer  of  Engineers.  The  men  who  had  been  deputed  to 
search  mounted  at  an  order,  and  fell  in  with  the  patrol,  and 
sat  upon  their  saddles  outside  the  courtyard  wall  exchanging 
furtive  winks  as  the  mevrouw  devoted  their  souls  and  bodies 
to  everlasting  perdition. 

A  quiet  utterance  from  the  little  red-haired  officer  checked 
the  torrent  of  the  woman's  anger.  She  screeched  In  dismay, 
raising  thick  hands  to  heaven.  The  coloured  man's  stolid  si- 
lence was  suddenly  swept  away  in  a  spate  of  oaths  and  pro- 
testations. Suddenly,  looking  in  the  officer's  unmoved  face, 
they  realized  the  uselessness  of  words,  turned  and  ran  between 
the  gateless  posts,  out  upon,  away  over,  the  dusty,  hoof-tracked, 
wheel-scored  veld.  And  their  ungainly  hurry  and  awkward 
gestures  of  terror  somehow  reminded  the  peering  Bough  Van 
Busch  of  an  engraving  he  had  seen  by  chance  in  a  Dopper  Bible, 
in  which  Lot  and  his  two  daughters,  fearfully  foreshortened 
by  the  artist,  scuttled  in  as  grotesque  an  insect  hurry  from  the 
doomed  vicinity  of  Sodom,  Queen  City  of  the  Plain. 

The  officer  of  Engineers  hardly  glanced  after  the  retreating 
couple.  He  stepped  across  the  threshold  of  the  disused  farm- 
kitchen,  holding  the  little  wooden  box  carefully  in  both  his 
dogskin-gloved  hands.  He  crossed  to  the  hearth,  stubbing  his 
toe  against  a  jutting  floor-brick,  and  as  he  did  so  he  caught  his 
breath.  Then  he  stepped  down  under  the  yawning  gape  of 
the  chimney,  and  seemed  to  grope  and  fumble  at  the  back  of 


460  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

the  hearth.  He  raised  himself  then,  stepped  back,  and  called 
out  sharply  in  the  Taal: 

"Wieis  daar?" 

The  man's  voice  dropped  back  dead  out  of  the  choked-up 
chimney-throat.  A  little  sooty  dust  fell.  There  was  no  other 
answer.  The  voice  was  lifted  again,  speaking  this  time  in 
English : 

"  Is  anyone  hiding  here  ?  " 

No  one  replied,  and  the  little  officer  seemed  to  give  up.  He 
lingered  a  moment  longer,  struck  a  match  as  though  to  light 
a  cigarette,  then  went  quickly  out  of  the  kitchen.  An  orderly 
waited  with  his  horse  outside  the  gateway.  Bough  Van 
Busch,  listening  with  strained  ears,  heard  the  click  of  spur 
against  stirrup,  the  creak  of  the  saddle  receiving  a  rider's 
weight.  There  was  a  short  sharp  whistle,  followed  by  the 
sound  of  cantering  hoofs,  and  the  rattle  of  hurrying  wheels 
dying  out  over  the  veld  to  the  northward.  The  unwelcome  in- 
truders had  gone.  Bough  Van  Busch,  after  a  cautious  inter- 
val, deemed  it  safe  to  descend. 

He  was  red-smeared  with  veld  dust  and  white-smeared  with 
mortar,  and  black  with  old  soot.  His  bulky  body  oscillated 
as  he  let  himself  down  from  beam  to  stanchion,  finding  sure 
foothold  in  the  crevices  and  hand-grip  in  the  stout  iron  hooks 
from  which  plump  mutton-hams  and  beef  sausages  had  hung 
ripening  in  the  hungry  smoke  of  burning  wood  and  dung. 
There  was  a  smell  in  his  nostrils  like  charring  wool  and  salt- 
petre. He  hung  over  the  wide  hearth  now.  A  short  drop  of 
not  more  than  a  foot  or  two  would  bring  him  safely  to  the 
ground. 

Van  Busch  did  not  drop.  He  dangled  by  the  hands  and 
sweated.  He  blasphemed  in  an  agony  of  terror,  though  it 
seemed  to  him  that  he  prayed. 

For  the  dandy  little  Engineer  officer  had  left  the  cigarbox 
lying  empty  among  the  powdery  ashes  in  the  wide,  old-world 
hearthplace.  An  innocent-looking  parcel  it  had  contained, 
wrapped  in  a  bit  of  old  canvas,  and,  further  secured  with  cop- 
per wire  and  string,  and  wedged  in  a  chink  between  the  black- 
ened stones  at  the  back  of  the  hearth.  From  it  a  fuse  hung 
down,  a  short  length  nearly  consumed  by  the  crepitating  fiery 
spark  at  its  loose  end.  It  burned  with  a  little  purring  sound, 
as  though  it  liked  the  business  it  was  engaged  upon.  Bough 
Van  Busch  knew  that  in  another  moment  the  detonation  would 
take  place.  .  .  . 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  461 

He  heard  nothing  of  it  when  it  came.  .  .  .  Nor  did  he 
know  it  when  the  walls  of  Cyclopean  masonry  bulged  and 
opened  about  him  like  the  petals  of  a  flowering  lily.  He  was 
beyond  all  that.  His  gross  body,  headless,  rent  and  torn  as 
though  the  devils  it  had  housed  had  wreaked  their  fury  on  their 
dwelling,  lay  sandwiched  between  the  wreckage  of  the  great 
chimney  and  the  millstone  that  had  paved  its  hearth,  now  a 
yawning  cavity,  some  six  feet  deep.  Leaning  on  its  side  in  a 
trench  its  own  weight  had  dug  in  the  stony  earth  of  the  dirty 
courtyard  was  the  huge  stone  that  had  topped  the  shaft. 
Something  ugly  was  wedged  in  the  central  hole  that  had  been 
made  bigger  to  let  out  the  smoke.  And  the  murderer's  soul, 
light  as  a  dried  leaf  fluttering  through  the  illimitable  spaces 
of  Eternity,  went  wandering  on  its  way  to  the  Balances  of 
God. 

The  handful  of  Cape  Police  who  had  searched  Haargrond 
Plaats,  with  the  drab-painted  cart,  the  three  Engineers,  and 
the  dandified  little  officer,  had  only  ridden  to  a  safe  distance. 
They  halted,  and,  concealed  from  observation  by  a  fold  of  the 
greening  veld,  waited  for  the  explosion  of  the  dynamite  cart- 
ridge. When  it  came  the  Engineer  officer  shut  his  binoculars, 
and  gave  the  signal  to  return. 


LIII 


THERE  were  two  funerals  in  the  Cemetery  at  Gueldersdorp, 
upon  a  May  night  that  no  one  will  forget  who  stood  in  the 
packed  throng  of  shadowy  mourners  about  each  of  those  open 
graves.  The  wind  blew  soft  from  the  west,  and  the  vault  of 
heaven  might  have  been  hollowed  out  of  the  darkling  depths  of 
an  amethyst  of  inconceivable  splendour  and  planetary  size. 
Myriads  of  stars,  dazzlingly  white,  swung  under  this,  her  fit- 
ting cenotaph,  shared  with  another,  not  like  her  holy,  not 
noble  or  unselfish  or  devoted  like  her  again,  but  like  her  in 
that  he  was  brave  and  much  beloved. 

Beloved  undoubtedly.  You  could  not  look  at  the  crowd- 
ing faces  about  the  narrow  open  trench  where  the  Reverend 
Julius  Faithorn  read  the  Burial  Service  by  lantern-light  with- 
out being  sure  of  that.  Men's  eyes  were  wet,  and  women 
sobbed  unrestrainedly.  He  had  been  so  beautiful  and  so  merry 


462  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

and  cheerful  always,  said  the  wet-eyed  women;  the  men 
praised  him  for  having  been  such  a  swordsman,  horseman, 
shot.  Everyone  spoke  of  him  as  the  life  and  soul  of  the  gar- 
rison, the  idol  of  his  brother  officers,  and  worshipped  by  the 
men  under  his  command.  Everyone  had  something  to  tell  of 
dead  Beauvayse  that  was  pleasant  to  hear. 

But  the  great  bulk  of  the  crowd  was  massed  behind  the 
black-robed,  white-coiffed  figures  of  the  Sisters,  kneeling  rigid 
and  immovable  about  the  second  open  grave,  where  the  Mother- 
'Superior  lay  in  her  snow-white  coffin,  fully  habited  and 
mantled,  her  Rosary  in  the  marble  hand  on  which  the  plain 
gold  ring  of  her  Divine  espousal  shone,  the  parchment,  formula 
of  the  vows  she  took  when  admitted  to  her  Order  nineteen 
years  before,  lying  under  those  meekly-folded  hands  upon  her 
breast.  So  she  had  lain,  feet  to  the  altar,  in  the  Convent 
chapel  that  her  daughters  in  Religion  had  draped  and  decked 
for  her,  keeping  their  loving  vigils  about  her  from  twilight  to 
dawn,  from  dawn  to  twilight,  until  this  hour  when  they  must 
yield  all  that  was  mortal  of  her  to  Earth's  guardianship  and  the 
unsleeping  watchfulness  of  God. 

Suffocatingly  dense  the  throng  about  this  grave,  and 
strangely  quiet.  The  women's  faces  white  and  haggard  and 
tearless,  the  men's  drawn  and  deeply  lined.  Not  even  muffled 
groans  or  sighs  of  pity  broke  the  profound  silence  as  the  solemn 
rite  drew  to  its  singularly  simple  and  impressive  close.  As  the 
fragrant  incense  rose  from  the  censer  and  the  holy  water 
sprinkled  the  snow-white  pall  that  bore  the  Red  Cross,  one 
dreadful  word  lurked  sinister  in  every  thought: 

Murdered!  .  .  . 

Their  friend,  helper,  nurse,  consoler,  the  woman  whose  hands 
had  staunched  the  bleeding  wounds  of  many  present,  whose 
arm  had  lifted  and  pillowed  the  dying  heads  of  others  dear  to 
them,  who  had  stood  through  long  nights  of  anguish  or  delirium 
beside  their  Hospital  pallets,  ministering  as  a  very  Angel  from 
Heaven  through  the  darkness  of  sorrow  and  despair — mur- 
dered! 

The  tender  Mother,  the  wise  virgin,  who  watched  con- 
tinually with  her  lamp  prepared,  that  at  the  first  voice  of  the 
Heavenly  Bridegroom  she  might,  enter  with  Him  into  the 
marriage  chamber,  could  it  be  that  His  signal  had  come  to  her 
by  the  bloodstained  hand  of  an  assassin?  It  was  so,  there  was 
no  doubt.  And — ah !  the  horror  of  it ! 

The  aged  priest  sobbed  as,  followed  by  the  server,  he  moved 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  463 

round  the  grave  within  the  oblong  wall  of  kneeling  Sisters. 
But  no  answering  sob  came  from  the  vast  assemblage.  They 
were  as  dumb — stricken  to  stone.  They  could  not  yet  con- 
template the  felicity  of  the  oure  soul  of  the  martyred  saint, 
carried  by  God's  Angels  into  the  Land  of  the  ever-living,  ad- 
mitted to  the  unspeakable  reward  of  the  Beatific  Vision.  They 
could  only  realize  that  somebody  had  killed  her. 

But  when  the  solemn  strophies  of  the  Litany  for  the  Dead 
broke  in  upon  a  profound  silence,  the  responses  of  the  multi- 
tude surged  upwards  like  giant  billows  shattering  their  force 
in  hollow  thunder  upon  Arctic  heights.  And  when,  in  due 
pursuance  of  the  symbolic  rite  of  Rome,  the  vested  priest  and 
her  whole  Sisterhood  suddenly  withdrew  from  the  grave,  and 
left  her  earthly  body,  how  wonderful  in  its  marble,  hushed, 
close-folded,  mysterious  beauty  none  who  had  looked  upon  it 
ever  could  forget,  waiting  for  the  second  coming  of  her  Master 
and  her  Lord,  a  great  sob  mounted  and  broke  from  every 
breast,  and  every  face  was  drenched  with  sudden  tears.  Per- 
haps God  let  her  see  how  much  they  loved  her  in  that  parting 
hour.  And  then  the  bugle  sounded  "  Last  Post "  over  both 
the  open  graves,  softly  for  fear  of  Bronnckers'  German  gun- 
ners, and  the  great  crowd  melted  away,  and  all  was  done  and 
over. 

I  have  said  that  all  the  people  wept.  There  was  a  girl  in 
white,  for  she  would  not  let  the  Sisters  put.  black  garments 
on  her,  kneeling  between  Sister  Tobias  and  Sister  Hilda- 
Antony.  This  girl  did  not  weep  at  all.  Chief  mourner  at 
both  these  funerals,  she  was  not  conscious  of  the  fact.  She 
knew  that  Beauvayse  was  on  duty  at.  Maxim  Outpost  South, 
and  could  not  get  away,  and  that  the  Reverend  Mother  was 
vexed  with  her,  and  was  hiding  at  the  Convent,  pretending  that 
she  had  gone  somewhere,  and  would  never  come  back. 

She  was  especially  clear  of  mind  when  she  thought  all  this. 
At  other  times  she  was  not  Lynette,  and  knew  no  one,  and 
had  never  known  anybody  of  the  name.  She  was  the  ragged 
Kid,  crouching  on  the  Little  Kopje  in  the  gathering  twilight 
or  on  the  long  mound  that  its  eastward  shadow  covered.  Or 
she  was  lying  under  the  tattered  horse-blanket  on  the  foul  straw 
pallet  in  the  outhouse,  waiting  for  the  Lady  to  come  with  the 
great,  kind,  covering  dark. 

Or  she  was  sitting  in  the  bar-parlour  on  an  upturned  cube- 
sugar  box  beside  the  green  rep  sofa  where  Bough  lolled  on 
wet  days  or  stormy  nights,  her  unoccupied  hands  folded  on  her 


464  CNE  BRAVER  THING 

lap,  her  every  nerve  tense  and  strained  with  terror  of  the  master 
in  his  condescending  moods,  when  he  would  make  pretence  of 
teaching  her  to  scrawl  coarse  pothooks  and  hangers  on  the 
greasy  slate  that  usually  hung  below  the  glass-and-bottle  shelf. 
Or — and  at  these  times  the  Sisters  found  her  difficult  to  man- 
age— she  was  crouching  upon  one  side  of  a  locked  door,  and  a 
long  thin  wire  was  feeling  its  way  into  the  keyhole  on  the  other 
side,  and  the  man  who  manipulated  it  laughed  as  the  agile  pliers 
nipped  the  end  of  the  key  and  turned  the  wards  in  the 
lock.  .  .  . 

And  then  she  would  be  running  through  the  night,  any- 
where, nowhere,  and  Bough  would  be  riding  after.  She  could 
hear  the  short  wheezing  gallop  of  the  tired  pony  when  she 
laid  her  ear  to  the  ground.  And  then  the  sjambok  wielded  by 
a  strong  and  brutal  hand  would  bite  into  the  quivering  flesh  of 
the  child,  and  she  would  shriek  for  mercy,  and  presently  fall 
upon  the  ground  and  lie  there  like  one  dead — acting  that  seven- 
year-old  tragedy  over  and  over  again. 

God  was  very  kind  to  you,  Reverend  Mother,  if  He  hid  that 
sight  from  one  to  whom  she  was  so  dear.  But  if  His  Blessed 
in  Heaven  have  cognizance  of  what  takes  place  in  this  dull, 
distant  speck  of  Earth,  I  think  some  salt  tears  must  needs  have 
fallen  from  the  starry  eyes  of  one  of  Christ's  saintly  maiden- 
spouses,  glorious  under  the  dual  crown  of  Virginity  and  Martyr- 
dom, and  yet  a  mother  as  truly  as  His  Own. 

That  swift  unerring  judgment  of  Saxham's  had  pointed, 
months  ago,  to  some  such  mental  and  physical  collapse,  as  the 
result  of  shock,  crowning  long-continued  nervous  overstrain. 
He  had  said  to  the  Mother  that  such  a  result  would  be  easier 
to  avert  than  to  deal  with. 

There  was  not  an  ounce  of  energy  the  man  possessed  that 
he  did  not  employ  in  dealing  with  it  now. 

Let  Sister  Tobias  tell  us,  as  she  told  Saxham  then,  the  story 
of  the  Finding.  She  was  always  a  plain  woman  of  few  words. 

"  The  last  charge  the  Mother  laid  on  us — Sister  Hilda- 
Antony  and  me — was  to  keep  our  eyes  upon  the  child.  The 
very  day  it  was  done  she  told  us,  and  I  saw  that  something 
had  made  her  anxious  by  the  look  that  was  in  her  eyes."  She 
dried  her  own  with  a  coarse  blue  cotton  handkerchief  before 
she  took  up  her  tale.  "  She  went  alone  to  the  Head  Hospital 
that  day.  None  of  us  were  to  be  surprised,  she  said,  if  she 
came  home  extra  late.  Sister  Hilda-Antony  and  me  were  on 
duty  at  the  Railway  Institute.  We  took  Lynette  with  us.~> 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  465 

There!  .  .  .  Didn't  she  look  up,  just  for  the  one  second,  as 
if  she  remembered  her  name?" 

She  had  not  done  so  at  all.  She  was  sitting  on  her  stool 
in  her  old  corner  of  the  Convent  bombproof,  but  she  did  not 
heed  the  shattering  crashes  of  the  bombardment  any  more. 
She  had  only  moved  to  push  out  of  her  eyes  the  dulled  and 
faded  hair  that  the  Sisters  could  not  keep  pinned  up,  and  bent 
over  her  little  slate  again.  Before  that  and  a  pencil  had  been 
given  her  she  had  been  restless  and  uneasy.  Now  she  would 
be  occupied  for  long  hours,  making  rude  attempts  at  drawing 
houses  and  figures  such  as  a  child  represents  with  round  "  O's  " 
of  different  sizes  for  heads  and  bodies  and  pitchforks  for  legs 
and  arms.  .  .  . 

Sister  Tobias  went  on:  "The  Siege  Gazette  had  come  out 
that  day,  with  the  news  of  " — she  dropped  her  voice  to  a  whis- 
per— "  of  her  being  likely  to  be  married  before  long  to  him 
that's  gone.  May  the  Lord  give  him  rest !  "  Sister  Tobias's 
well-accustomed  ringers  patterned  over  the  bib  of  her  blue- 
checked  apron,  making  the  Sign.  "  And  Sister  Hilda-Antony 
and  me  had  the  world's  work  with  all  the  people  who  stopped 
us  in  the  street  and  came  round  us  at  the  Hospital  to  say  how 
glad  they  were.  Talk  of  a  stone  plopped  in  a  duckpond! 
You'd  have  thought  by  the  crazy  way  folks  went  on  that  two 
pretty  young  people  had  never  went,  and  got  engaged  before." 
Sister  Tobias  was  never  coldly  grammatical  in  speech.  "  But 
the  child  was  happy,  poor  dear,  in  hearing  even  strangers  praise 
him;  and  when  the  firing  stopped  and  we  were  on  our  way 
home,  she  begged  us  to  turn  out  of  it  and  call  in  at  the  Con- 
vent, where  he'd  begged  her  to  meet  him,  if  only  for  a  minute, 
not  having  seen  her  since  the  Sunday  when " 

Saxham,  who  writhed  inwardly,  remembering  that  Sunday, 
nodded,  bending  his  heavy  brows.  His  ears  were  given  to 
Sister  Tobias,  his  eyes  to  the  slight  figure  that  somehow,  in 
the  skirt  some  impatient  movement  had  wrenched  from  the 
gathers  and  the  shirt-bodice  that  was  buttoned  awry,  had  the 
air  of  a  ragged,  neglected  child.  And  she  held  up  her 
scrawled  slate  to  keep  his  look  out,  and  peeped  at.  him  round 
the  side  of  it.  Big  strong  men  like  that  could  be  cruel  when 
they  were  angry.  The  Kid  knew  that  so  well.  Perhaps,  had 
those  observant  eyes  of  Saxham's  been  less  intent  upon  her 
those  rude  marks  upon  the  slate  might  have  recalled  characters 
as  rude  and  seemingly  as  incomprehensible  shown  him  by  the 
Chaplain  upon  the  morning  of  the  day  that  had  left  her  for 


466  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

the  second  time  motherless.  But  beyond  her  face  he  saw 
nothing.  Sister  Tobias  was  saying:  "We  went  to  the  Con- 
vent with  the  child.  We  hadn't  the  heart  to  deny  her,  though 
we  thought  the  Mother  might  be  vexed  that  we  hadn't  come 
straight  home.  A  queer  thing  happened  as  we  crossed  the  road 
and  went  up  along  the  fence  towards  the  gates  with  the  child 
between  us.  ...  A  big,  heavy  man,  dressed  as  the  miners 
dress,  with  a  great  black  beard  and  his  hat  pulled  down  over 
his  eyes,  came  along  in  such  a  hurry  that  he  knocked  Sister 
Hilda-Antony  off  the  kerb  into  the  road^  and  brushed  close  up 
against  her " 

"Against  Miss  Mildare?  Did  it  occur  to  you  that  the  man 
had  come  out  of  the  Convent  enclosure  ? "  Saxham  asked 
quickly.  Sister  Tobias  shook  her  head. 

"  No ;  but  I  did  think  he  meant  stopping  and  speaking  to 
the  child,  and  then  changed  his  mind  and  hurried  on.  '  Did 
he  hurt  you,  dearie? '  I  asked  her,  seeing  her  shaking  and  quite 
flustered-like.  And  she  answers,  '  I  don't  know.  .  .  .'  And 
'Was  it  anyone  you  knew?'  I  puts  to  her  again,  and  '  I  can't 
tell,'  says  she,  like  as  if  she  was  answering  in  her  sleep.  Do 
you  thinks  she  understands  we're  talking  about  her,  poor 
lamb?" 

They  both  looked  at  her,  and  she,  having  been  taught  by 
painful  experience  that  to  be  the  object  of  simultaneous  obser- 
vation on  the  part  of  the  man  and  woman  meant  punishment  in- 
volving stripes,  began  to  tremble  and  hung  her  head.  From 
under  her  tangled  hair  she  peeped  from  side  to  side,  wondering 
what  it  was  she  had  left  undone.  Ah! — the  broom,  standing 
in  the  corner.  She  had  forgotten  to  sweep  out  the  house-place 
and  the  bar.  When  the  dreaded  eyes  turned  from  her,  she  got 
up  and  went  softly  to  the  corner  where  Sister  Tobias's  besom 
stood,  and  took  it  and  began  to  sweep,  casting  terrified  glances 
through  her  hair  at  her  two  Fates. 

Something  gripped  Saxham  by  the  heart  and  wrung  it.  The 
scalding  tears  were  bitter  in  his  throat.  Do  what,  he  would 
to  keep  them  free,  his  eyes  were  dimmed  and  blinded,  and 
Sister  Tobias  wiped  her  own  openly  with  the  blue  cotton  hand- 
kerchief. 

"  We  thought  the  young  gentleman  would  be  waiting  near 
the  Convent,"  said  Sister  Tobias,  "  or  in  one  of  the  ground- 
floor  rooms,  but  he  wasn't  there.  Me  and  Sister  Hilda- 
Antony  looked  at  one  another.  '  Early  days  for  a  young  girl's 
sweetheart  to  be  late  at  the  meeting-place,'  says  Sister  Hilda- 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  467 

Antony's  eyes  to  me,  and  mine  said  back,  *  The  Lord  grant  no 
harm's  come  to  him!'  We  waited  five  minutes  by  the  school 
clock,  that's  never  been  let  run  down,  and  then  another  five, 
and  still  he  didn't  come.  He  had  got.  his  death-wound,  though 
we  didn't  know  it,  hours  before." 

"  The  Angel  of  Death  had  spread  his  wings  over  the  Con- 
vent. Both  me  and  Sister  Hilda- Antony  felt  there  was  a 
strange  and  awful  stillness  and  solemnness  about  the  place.  At 
last  me  and  her  told  the  child  that  go  we  must.  We'd  wait 
no  longer.  But  she,  knowing  we'd  never  leave  without  her, 
ran  upstairs.  We  heard  her  light  feet  going  over  the  wet 
matting  and  down  the  long  passage  to  the  Chapel  door. 
Then " 

Sister  Tobias  sobbed  for  another  moment  in  the  blue  hand- 
kerchief. The  child,  who  had  been  diligently  sweeping, 
looked  at  the  woman  and  at  the  big  man  who  had  made  her 
cry  with  great  dilated  eyes  of  fear.  She  put  the  broom  back 
noiselessly  in  its  corner,  and  stole  back  to  her  stool.  Who 
knew  what  might  happen  next? 

"  Then,"  said  Sister  Tobias,  "  we  heard  the  dreadfullest 
scream.  'Mother!'  just  once,  and  after  it  dead  silence. 
Then — I  don't  know  how  we  got  there,  it  was  so  like  a  cruel 
dream — but  we  were  in  the  Chapel,  trying  to  raise  them  up. 
That  dear  Saint — may  the  Peace  of  God  and  the  Bliss  of  His 
Vision  be  upon  her  for  ever! — lay  dead  on  the  altar-step  where 
the  wicked,  murdering  hand  had  shot  her  down.  .  .  .  And 
the  child  lay  across  her,  just  where  she  had  dropped  in  trying 
to  lift  her.  And  the  strength  of  me  and  the  Sister,  and  the 
strength  of  them  that  came  after,  wasn't  equal  to  unloose  those 
slender  little  hands  you're  watching." 

The  slender  little  hands  were  busy  with  the  slate  and  pencil 
,  as  Saxham  looked  at  them. 

"  Those  that  came  and  helped  us  had  been  sent  on  from  the 
Convent  bomb-proof,  where  they'd  been  to  look  for  her" 
Sister  Tobias  glanced  sorrowfully  at  the  owner  of  those  little 
busy  hands — "  with  an  Ambulance  chair  and  a  story  of  more 
trouble.  But  Our  Lady  had  had  pity  on  the  child.  She  was 
past  understanding  why  they'd  come  to  fetch  her.  .  .  .  The 
brain  can  soak  up  trouble  till  it  won't  hold  a  drop  more.  But 
she  was  quiet  and  happy  kneeling  by  that  blessed  Saint,  waiting 
till  the  Lady  should  wake  up,  she  said.  .  .  .  And,  'deed  and 
'deed,  but  it  looked  like  the  blessedest  sleep " 

Sister  Tobias  broke  down  and  cried  outright.     The  child 


468  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

eyed  her  half  suspiciously,  half  wonderingly.  Her  great  terri- 
fied eyes  had  not  seen  the  man  strike,  but  he  must  have  hurt,  the 
woman.  Therefore,  she  looked  sharply  at  the  man  between 
the  tangled  masses  of  the  hair  that  could  not  be  kept  pinned 
up,  and  saw  two  great  slow  tears  ooze  over  his  thick  under- 
lids,  and  glitter  as  they  hung  there,  and  then  fall.  Others 
jfollowed  them,  tumbling  down  the  square  white  face,  and  the 
•stern  mouth  was  wrenched  with  a  strange  spasm,  and  the  grim 
chin  trembled  curiously.  .  .  . 

Somebody  had  hurt  the  man.  ...  It  is  not  possible  to 
follow  up  the  workings  of  the  disordered  intelligence,  and  read 
the  blurred  letters  of  the  confused  mind.  It  is  enough  that  her 
terror  of  him  abated.  She  slipped  from  her  stool  to  the  floor, 
under  the  pretence  of  picking  up  her  slate-pencil,  and  threw 
back  the  hair  that  prevented  her  seeing  clearly,  and  peered  up 
in  that  working  face  of  Saxham's  with  curiosity,  crouching 
near  him.  She  did  not  recoil  violently  when  the  strange,  sor- 
rowful face  bent  towards  her;  she  only  shrank  back  as  Sax- 
ham  asked: 

"You  remember  me?     You  know  my  name?" 

She  nodded,  eyeing  him  warily.  If  his  hand  had  moved, 
she  would  have  sprung  backwards.  But  it  did  not  stir. 

"Tell  me  who  I  am,  then?" 

"  Man." 

Her  lips  shaped  the  word.  Her  voice  was  barely  audible. 
His  heart  beat  thickly  as  he  went  on: 

"  Quite  right,  but  something  else  besides  man.  A  man  with 
a  name.  Tell  me  the  name,  or  shall  I  tell  it  you  ?  " 

She  nodded,  and  her  eyes  were  great  and  timorous,  but  there 
was  no  terror  of  him  in  them  now. 

"  My  name  is  Saxham — Owen  Saxham.  Say  the  name 
after  me." 

For  a  wonder  she  obeyed.  Sister  Tobias  caught  a  breath 
of  surprise,  but  her  subdued  exclamation  was  silenced  in  mid- 
utterance  by  Saxham's  look. 

"  Dr.  Owen  Saxham — Doctor  because  I  try  to  cure  sick 
people.  You  have  seen  me  trying  at  the  hospitals.  You  have 
helped  me  many  times " 

She  puckered  her  delicate,  bewildered  brows,  and  held 
her  head  on  one  side.  To  be  made  to  think,  and  recall,  and 
remember,  hurt. 

" — Many  times,  and  the  sick  people  were  grateful.  They 
often  ask  me  now,  How  is  Miss  Mildare?" 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  469 

Her  attention  had  wandered  to  the  bronzed  buttons  on  the 
Doctor's  khaki  coat.  She  was  trying  to  count  them,  it  seemed, 
by  the  movement  of  her  lips.  Saxham  went  on  with  inexorable 
patience : 

"  Never  mind  the  buttons.  Look  at  me.  Think  of  the 
patients  at  the  Hospital  who  are  asking  when  Lynette  Mildare 
is  coming  back  again.  Tell  me  what  I  am  to  say  to  them, 
Lynette." 

His  voice  shook  over  the  beloved  name.  In  spite  of  his 
grim  effort  to  fight  down  the  overmastering  emotion,  his  eyes 
brimmed  over,  and  a  drop  splashed,  hot  and  heavy,  upon  the 
wandering  hand  that  crept  out  to  finger  the  buttons  that  would 
not  let  themselves  be  counted  right.  She  looked  up  at  the 
eyes  that  wept  for  her,  and  their  mingled  love  and  anguish 
touched  even  her  dulled  mind  to  pity.  She  held  her  slender 
hand  up  against  the  light,  and  looked  at  the  splash  of  wet  upon 

'"You— cry?" 

There  was  a  glimmer  of  something  in  the  eyes  that  re- 
deemed their  vagueness.  A  rush-light  seen  shining  through  a 
night  of  mist  upon  a  desolate  mountain-side  might  have  meant 
as  little  or  as  much  to  eyes  that  saw  it.  Saxham  saw  it,  and 
it  meant  much  to  him.  His  great  chest  lifted  on  a  wave  of 
hope  as  he  answered  her: 

"  I  cry  for  somebody  who  cannot  cry  for  herself.  Shall  I 
tell  you  her  name?  It  is  Lynette  Mildare.  When  tears  come 
to  her,  then  it  will  be  for  those  who  love  her  to  cry  again  for 
joy,  for  she  will  be  given  back  to  them.  .  .  ." 

"  Lord  grant  it!  "  breathed  Sister  Tobias  behind  them.  But 
Saxham  had  forgotten  her.  The  fountains  of  his  deep  were 
broken  up  and  rushing  from  him. 

"  I  think  that  day  will  come,  Lynette.  I  believe  that  day 
will  come,"  he  said,  holding  the  beautiful  vague  gaze  with  his. 
"  If  every  drop  in  these  veins  of  mine,  poured  out,  could  bring 
it  more  quickly,  it  should  be  hastened  so;  if  every  faculty  of 
my  body,  every  cell  in  my  brain,  bent  to  the  achievement  of  one 
end,  expended  to  the  last  unit  of  energy,  in  the  restoration  of 
what  is  infinitely  dearer  to  me  than  life — than  a  hundred  lives, 
if  I  had  them  to  devote — could  insure  its  dawning,  and  bring 
the  light  of  Reason  and  Memory  and  Hope  into  these  beloved 
eyes  again " 

A  sob  tore  its  way  through  the  Doctor's  great  frame.  He 
rose  up  abruptly  and  hurried  away. 


470  ONE  BRAVER  THING 


LIV 

A  DEADLY  lassitude,  both  physical  and  mental,  had  settled 
down  upon  the  men  and  women  of  the  garrison.  They  knew 
that  Bronnckers  had  gone  south,  leaving  General  Huysmans 
in  command  of  the  investing  forces.  They  knew  that  the  rainy 
season  brought,  them  fever,  for  they  shivered  and  burned  with 
it,  and  they  knew  that  the  scanty  rations  of  coarse  and  unpalat- 
able food  were  getting  smaller  every  day. 

But  they  were  conscious  of  these  things  in  a  dull  way,  and  as 
though  they  affected  people  who  were  a  long  distance  off. 
One  day,  when  for  the  thousandth  time  word  came  that  the 
advance-guard  of  the  Relief  was  in  sight,  when  the  commotion 
visible  in  the  enemy's  laager  suggested  a  poked-up  ant-hill,  and 
seemed  to  confirm  the  report,  there  was  a  brief  flicker  of  ex- 
citement. Mounted  men  rode  out  in  force,  guns  were  limbered 
up  and  galloped  out  north  and  west,  to  divert  General  Huys- 
mans' attention,  and  give  Grumer,  conjectured  to  be  waiting 
for  it,  the  opportunity  for  an  eagle-like  swoop  down  upon  the 
harassed  tortoise  sprawling  on  her  sand-hills.  But  the  rainy 
dark  came  down  upon  the  clatter  of  artillery,  and  the  shining 
dawn  crept  up  and  brought  the  cruel  news  that  the  allies  had 
really  been  beaten  back;  and  if  there  was  any  doubt  of  that,  it 
was  dissipated  when  one  of  the  Red  Cross  waggons  came 
rumbling  back  out  of  the  sloppy  morning  twilight,  bringing 
Three  Messengers  to  confirm  the  tale. 

They  were  eloquent  enough,  even  in  their  speechlessness, 
those  three  dead  troopers,  whose  boots  and  coats  were  missing, 
and  whose  pockets  had  been  turned  inside  out.  Not.  a  man  of 
them  was  known  to  any  member  of  the  beleaguered  garrison. 
Yet  every  man  and  woman  there  was  the  poorer  by  three  friends 
and  one  more  hope. 

We  know  what  was  happening  while  Gueldersdorp  ate  her 
patient  heart  out.  It  has  been  written  in  the  History  of  Suc- 
cessful Strategy  how  Lord  Williams  of  Afghanistan,  landing 
at  Cape  Town  in  January,  found  Huller  on  his  way  from 
Port  Christmas,  Whittaker  at  Bergstorm,  Parris  at  Kooisberg, 
Ruthven  on  the  Wiedder,  and  everybody  and  everything  at  a 
deadlock.  And  being  too  old  and  wise  to  disdain  the  wisdom 
of  others,  the  keen  old  brain  under  the  frosty  thatch  recalled 
to  mind  the  story  of  Stonewall  Jackson,  collected  what  forces 
he  could  muster,  slipped  in  between  two  of  the  columns  held 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  471 

immovable,  and  having  established  his  lines  of  communication 
to  the  south,  launched  himself  on  Groenfontein,  and  created 
the  necessary  diversion.  A  mighty  wave  rolled  back  to  protect 
the  menaced  Free  State  capital,  the  paralyzed  columns  moved 
again,  Diamond  Town  was  relieved  by  Sir  George  Parris,  and 
Commandant  Selig  Bronnckers  was  captured  at  Pijlberg. 

Doubtless  he  was  a  bully  and  a  tyrant,  that  roaring-voiced, 
truculent  man.  But  those  angry,  red-veined  grey  eyes  of  his 
could  look  Death  squarely  in  the  face,  and  the  brain  behind 
them  could  conceive  and  plan  stratagems  and  tactics  that  were 
masterly,  and  devise  works  that  were  marvels  of  Defensive 
Art.  An  the  heavy  hand  that  patted  Mevrouw  Bronnckers' 
head,  as  that  devoted  woman  sat  disconsolate  in  the  river-bed, 
surrounded  by  her  children,  and  pots,  and  bundles,  and  the 
roaring  voice  that  softened  to  speak  words  of  consolation,  even 
as  the  trap  so  ingeniously  set  to  catch  a  Tartar  closed  in — 
North,  South,  East,  West — belonged  to  a  man  who  knew  not 
only  how  to  fight  and  win  and  how  to  fight  and  lose,  but  how 
to  love  and  pity. 

There  came  the  faint  dawn  of  a  day  in  May  when  the  plan 
of  that  bright  young  man  Schenk  Eybel  was  tried,  and  tried 
successfully.  .  .  .  The  line  between  two  forts  that  lay  far 
apart  on  the  south  and  south-west  was  pierced,  while  the  in- 
cessant roll  of  rifles  made  a  mile-long  fringe  of  jagged  yellow- 
ish flame  along  the  enemy's  eastern  trenches.  Even  before  the 
feint  sputtered  out  the  rush  had  been  made,  the  stratagem  had 
developed,  and  at  the  bidding  of  twenty  incendiary  torches, 
the  daub-and-wattle  huts  of  the  Barala  town  leaped  skyward 
in  roaring  conflagration. 

We  know  the  glorious,  unlooked-for  ending  of  that  day  of 
fire  and  blood.  It  is  marked  with  a  white  stone  in  the  History 
of  the  Siege  of  Gueldersdorp,  and  the  chapter  is  headed  "  The 
Turning  of  the  Tables."  It  gives  a  spirited  description  of  the 
prudent  retreat  of  General  Huysmans,  the  unconditional  sur- 
render of  Commandant  Eybel,  and  winds  up  with  a  pen-and- 
ink  sketch  of  Bronnckers'  bright  boy  breaking  the  chaff-bread 
of  captivity  in  the  quarters  of  that  slim  duyvel,  the  Engelsch 
Commandant. 

But  while  the  Boer  was  yet  top-dog  in  the  scuffle,  and  held 
the  Barala  stad,  and  the  fort  that  had  lately  done  duty  aa 
headquarters  for  the  Irregulars,  holding  captive  their  command- 
ing officer,  several  of  his  juniors,  and  some  fifteen  troopers, 
with  a  handful  of  Town  Guards,  and  all  the  fighting  men  who 


472  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

could  be  spared  from  the  trenches  were  being  posted  between 
the  enemy  and  the  town,  and  a  couple  of  field-guns  were  being 
hurried  into  position,  and  it  had  not  yet  occurred  to  Com- 
mandant Schenk  Eybel  that  the  cautious  Huysmans  might 
leave  him  in  the  lurch,  things  looked  very  bad  indeed  for  the 
doughty  defenders  of  little  Gueldersdorp — certainly  up  to  after- 
noon-tea time,  when  a  couple  of  Scotch  girls  crossed  the  two 
hundred  yards  of  veld  that,  lay  between  the  Fort  and  the  town, 
carrying  cans  of  steaming  tea  for  the  parching  Britons  penned 
up  there. 

You  are  to  see  those  calm,  unconscious  heroines  start,  fixing 
their  hairpinned  braids  with  quick,  deft  touches,  pinning  up 
their  skirts  as  for  the  crossing  of  a  wimpling  burn  rather  than 
for  the  fording  of  Death's  black  river.  They  measured  the 
distance  with  cool,  keen  eyes,  took  up  a  can  in  each  hand,  ex- 
changed a  word,  and  started.  The  remaining  can  they  left  be- 
hind, saying  they  would  come  back  for  it.  And  they  meant  to, 
and  would  have,  but  for  a  pale  young  woman  in  curling-pins, 
crowned  by  the  deplorable  wreck  of  a  large  and  flowery  hat, 
and  wearing  a  pink  cotton  gown  of  deplorable  limpness, 
through  the  washed-out  material  of  which  her  sharpened  collar- 
bones and  thin  shoulders  threatened  to  pierce.  For  'ow  are 
you  to  take  to  call  a  proper  pride  in  yourself  when  you  'aven't 
got  no  'art  for  anythink  any  more? 

You  are  to  understand  that  Emigration  Jane  'ad  bin  'in 
'Orspital  along  of  what,  the  doctors  called  the  Triphoid  Fever, 
munfs  an'  munfs,  and  'ad  bin  crooil  bad,  an'  sent  back  again 
after  being  discharged,  on  accounts  of  an  Elapse,  and  kep'  a 
dreadful  time  at  the  Women's  Combalescent,  through  her  blood 
being  nothink  but  water — and  now  you  may  guess  the  reason 
of  that  fruitless  search  on  the  part  of  W.  Keyse. 

She  tried  to  run  at  first,  but  the  can  was  full  and  heavy, 
and  her  knees  shook  under  her  at  the  screaming  of  the  bullets 
over  that  cross-swept  field.  Her  pore  'art  beat  somethink 
crooil,  and  there  was  a  horrible  kind  of  swishing  in  her  years, 
but  to  give  up,  and  chuck  away  the  can,  and  scuttle  back  to 
cover,  with  Them  Two  stepping  along  in  front  as  cool — and 
more  than  halfway  over,  was  what  Emigration  Jane  could  not 
demean  herself  to  do.  And  at  last  they  passed  her  coming 
back,  and  the  Fort  loomed  up  before  her,  as  suddenly  as  though 
it  had  sprouted  up  mushroom-fashion  under  her  dazzled  eyes. 
And  grimy  men  were  leaning  over  the  sandbags  parapet  ap- 
plauding her,  and  blackened  hands  attached  to  hairy  arms 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  473 

reached  down  and  grabbed  the  can,  and  it  was  taken  up  into  the 
air  and  vanished,  she  never  knew  how.  And  then  she  was  star- 
ing up  into  the  lean,  brickdust-coloured  face  of  a  Corporal  of 
the  Town  Guard,  whose  head  was  swathed  in  a  bloody  band- 
age, and  in  all  the  wide  world  there  was  only  Her  and 
Him. 

"You  fust-class  little  Nailer.  You  Al  bit  o'  frock " 

W.  Keyse  began.  Then  his  pale  eyes  bolted  and  his  jaw  fell, 
and  his  overwhelming  joy  and  relief  took  on  the  aspect  of 
horrified  consternation. 

"  Watto ! "  he  was  beginning  weakly,  but  she  tore  her  gaze 
from  his,  and  with  a  rending  sob,  covered  her  face  with  her 
hands,  and  ran  blindly.  He  remained  petrified  and  staring. 
And  then  a  bullet  struck  him  full  in  the  face,  and  he  screamed 
like  a  shot  rock-rabbit,  and  threw  up  his  arms  and  fell  back, 
smothering  in  his  own  blood,  behind  the  breastwork.  And 
she  never  knew  the  cruel  trick  that  Fate  had  played  her,  as 
she  ran.  .  .  . 

She  learned  it  later,  when  Young  Eybel  and  his  party  were 
marched  prisoners  into  town,  and  cheer  upon  cheer  went  up 
from  British  throats,  and  bells  were  ringing  joyfully,  and 
<(  God  Save  the  Queen !  "  bellowed  in  every  imaginable  key,  was 
heard  from  every  possible  quarter. 

It  was  while  the  Barala  were  wrailing  over  their  suffocated 
women  and  piccaninns,  and  the  acrid  fumes  of  burning  yet 
hung  heavy  in  the  powder-tinted  air,  and  the  R.A.M.C.  men 
and  their  volunteer  helpers  were  bringing  in  the  wounded  and 
the  dead,  that  Emigration  Jane  saw  a  face  upon  a  stretcher  that 
\vas  being  carried  through  the  rejoicing  crowd,  and  screamed 
at  the  sight,  and  fell  tooth  and  nail  upon  the  human  barrier 
that  interposed  between  herself  and  it,  and  got  through — how, 
she  never  could  'a'  told  you. 

Rather  a  dreadful  face  it  was,  with  wide-open,  staring  eyes 
protruding  through  a  stiffening  mask  of  gore.  The  teeth 
grinned,  revealed  by  the  livid,  drawn-back  lips,  and  how  she 
knew  him  again  in  such  a  orful  styte  she  never- — not  to  this 
<lay,  if  you  offered  her  pounds  and  pounds  to  tell  you 

She  was  only  Emigration  Jane,  but  when  the  bearers  halted 
with  the  stretcher,  it  was  in  obedience  to  the  gesture  and  the 
look  of  a  young  woman  who  had  risen  above  herself  into  the 
keen  and  piercing  atmosphere  of  High  Tragedy. 

"Put  that  down,  you  two  blokes.  Wot  for?"  Her  thin 
throat  swelled  visibly  before  the  screarn_came :  "  'Cos  'e  be- 


474  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

longs  to  me.  'Ain't  that  enough?  Then — I  belongs  to  'im. 
Dead  or  livin' — oh,  my  darlin' !  my  darlin' !  " 

The  bearers  interchanged  a  look  as  they  laid  their  burden 
down.  It  was  not  heavy,  even  when  not  living  under  con- 
ditions of  severe  starvation,  for  Corporal  W.  Keyse  was  a  short 
man  and  a  spare.  Had  been,  one  was  tempted  to  say,  in  regard 
to  his  condition:  "For,"  said  one  of  the  R.A.M.C.  men  to  a 
sympathetic  bystander,  "  the  chap  has  had  a  tremendous  wipe 
over  the  head  with  a  revolver-butt  or  a  gun-stock,  and  he  has 
been  shot  in  the  face  besides.  There's  the  hole  plain  where 
the  bullet  went  in  under  his  near  nostril,  and  came  out  at  the 
left-hand  corner  of  his  off  eye.  And  unless  a  kind  o'  miracle 
happens,  I  should  say,  myself,  that  it  would  be  a  saving  of 
time  to  carry  him  straight  to  the  Cemetery." 

"  Don't  let  the  poor  girl  hear  you,"  said  the  sympathetic 
bystander.  But  Emigration  Jane  was  past  hearing  or  seeing 
anything  but  the  damaged  head  upon  the  canvas  pad,  as  she  beat 
her  breast  and  cried  out  to  it  wildly,  dropping  on  her  knees 
beside  it: 

"  O  my  own,  own,  try  an'  know  me !  Come  back  for  long 
enough  to  s'y  one  word!  O  God,  if  You  let  'im,  I'll  pray  to 
You  all  my  days.  O  pore,  pore  darlin'  'ead  that  wicked  men 
'ave  'urt  so  crooil " 

It  was  a  lover's  bosom  that  she  drew  it  to,  panting  under 
the  limp  and  shabby  cotton  print  gown.  And  the  voice  that 
called  W.  Keyse  to  come  back  from  the  very  threshold  of  the 
Otherwhere  was  the  voice  of  true,  true  love. 

It  worked  the  kind  o'  miracle,  for  one  of  the  Corporal's 
stiffened  eyelids  quivered  and  came  down  halfway,  and  the 
martial  spirit  of  its  owner  flickered  up  long  enough  for  W. 
Keyse  to  sputter  out: 

"  C'rips,  it's  'Er!  Am  I  dead  an'  got  to  'Eaven — on  some- 
body else's  pass?" 

"  Born  to  be  hung,  I  should  say,"  commented  the  R.A.M.C. 
man  aside  to  his  mate.  "  Chuck  some  water  over  the  young 
woman,  one  of  you,"  he  added,  as  the  stretcher  was  lifted,  and 
the  small  cortege  proceeded  on  its  way.  "  And  tell  her,  when 
she  comes  to,  that  we've  taken  her  sweetheart  to  Hospital  in- 
stead of  to  the  other  place." 

"  Rum  critters,  women,"  commented  another  bystander,  not 
untender  in  his  manner  of  sprinkling  the  dubious  liquid  known 
in  Gueldersdorp  as  water  out  of  a  cracked  tin  dipper  over  the 
face  of  the  young  woman  who  sat  upon  the  ground  in  the  centre 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  475 

of  a  circular  palisade  of  interested  human  legs.  "  Look  at 
this  one,  for  instance.  Lively  as  a  vink  as  long  as  she  believes 
her  chap  a  corpse,  and  does  a  solid  flop  as  soon  as  she  finds  out 
he  has  a  kick  in  him.  Help  her  up,  you  on  the  other 
side.  Do  you  think  you  could  walk  now,  miss,  if  you  tried 
to?" 

She  made  a  faltering  attempt,  but  her  knees  shook  under 
her.  Her  clasped  hands  shook,  too,  as  she  held  them  out  be- 
seeching those  about,  her  to  be  pitiful,  and  tell  her  where 
"  they "  had  taken  him.  Then,  when  she  was  told,  and  be- 
cause she  was  too  weak  and  dazed  to  walk,  she  ran  all  the  way 
to  the  Hospital,  and  volunteered  to  nurse  him. 

Saxham  stitched  up  the  split  scalp  of  W.  Keyse,  and  grimly 
congratulated  him  upon  the  thickness  of  the  skull  beneath  it. 
The  bullet  had,  as  has  already  been  indicated,  gone  in  under 
the  left  nostril,  and  emerged  below  the  inner  corner  of  the 
right  eye,  gaining  the  recipient  of  the  wound  notoriety  as  well 
as  a  strong  temporary  snuffle  and  a  slight  permanent,  cast.  .  .  . 

"  You  shall  git  well,  deer,"  Emigration  Jane  would  tell  her 
patient  twenty  times  a  day.  "  You  carn't  'elp  it,  becos  I  means 
to  myke  yer." 

"  A'  right,"  her  hero  would  snuffle.  One  day  he  added,  with 
a  weakly  swoop  of  one  lean  arm  in  the  direction  of  her  waist: 
"  Mend  me  an'  marry  me.  That's  wot  I  call  a  Fair  Division 
o'  Labour.  Twig?  " 

She  crimsoned,  gasping: 

"Yer  don't  never  mean  it?" 

"  Stryte  I  mean  it,"  declared  W.  Keyse.  "  Woddjer  tyke 
me  for?" 

His  bed  was  in  a  corner,  and  a  screen  baffled  prying  eyes. 
She  hung  over  him,  trembling,  ardent,  doubting,  joyful,  fal- 
tering: 

"  S'y  it  agyne,  darlin'.     Upon  yer  solemn  natural " 

He  said  it  with  the  lean  arm  round  her. 

"An'  it's  me — me  wot  you  wants — an'  not  that  Other 
One? " 

He  swore  it. 

"You  and  not  that  Other  One.  So  help  me  Jiminy 
Cripps!" 

"An'  you  forgives  me — abart  them  letters?"  Her  face 
was  coming  close.  .  .  . 

"  Every  time  I  blooming  well  kissed  'em  arter  I  bin  an' 
picked  'em  up,"  he  declared.. 


476  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

"You  did — that?"  she  quavered,  marvelling  at  the  greatness 
of  his  nature. 

"  Look  in  me  jacket  pocket  if  you  think  I'm  spinnin'  yer 
fairy  ones."  His  close  arm  slackened  a  little.  "  Now  there's 
somethin'  I  got  to  up  an'  tell,  if  yer  never  tips  me  the  'Ow  Do 
no  more." 

"Wot  is  it,  deer?"  Her  heart  beat  painfully.  Was  this 
something  the  reason  why  he  had  not  yet  kissed  her? 

"  It's  got  to  do  with  the  Dutchy  wot  landed  me  this  clip 
over  the  cokernut " — he  indicated  the  plaster  strappings  that 
decorated  the  seat  of  intelligence — "  with  a  revolver-butt,  when 
they  rushed  the  Fort.  After  'e'd  plugged  at  me  wiv'  'is  last 
cartridge  an'  missed."  The  Adam's  apple  in  his  thin  throat 
worked  up  above  the  collar  of  the  grey  flannel  Hospital  jacket. 
"  I— I  outed  'im,"  said  W.  Keyse. 

"  O'  course  you  did,  deer."  Her  heart,  thrilled  with  pride 
in  her  hero.  "  An'  serve  'im  glad — the  narsty,  blood-thirsty, 
murderin' " 

He  interrupted : 

"  'Old  'ard.  Wait  till  you  knows  'oo  it  was."  He  gulped, 
and  the  Adam's  apple  jerked  in  the  old  way.  "That  'ulkin' 
big  Dopper  you  was  walkin'  out  along  of,  when  I " 

"Walt!     It  was— Walt?" 

She  shuddered  and  grew  pale. 

"That's  the  bloke  I  means.  I  'ad  to  'ave  'im,"  explained 
W.  Keyse,  "  ar  'e'd  'ave  'ad  me.  So  I  sent  'im  in.  With  my 
one,  two,  on'  the  'Aymaker's  Lift.  Right  in  the  middle  of  'is 
dirty  weskit.  F'fr!"  He  blew  a  sigh.  "Now  it's  out,  an' 
I  suppose  you  'ates  me  ?  " 

She  panted. 

"  It's  'orrible,  deer,  but — but — you  'ad  to.  An' — an' — if 
I'  ave  to  s'y  it,  I'd  a  blowin'  sight  rather  it  was  'Im  than  You." 

"  I'll  'ave  my  kiss  now,"  said  the  lordly  W.  Keyse.  And 
took  it  from  her  willing  lips. 


LV 

THERE  was  no  perceptible  change  in  Lynette,  either  at.  the 
time  of  young  Eybel's  frustrated  coup  or  for  long  after.  She 
was  to  live  as  much  as  possible  in  the  open  air,  Saxham  had  in- 
sisted, and  so  you  would  find  the  girl,  with  a  Sister  in  charge 
of  her,  sitting  in  the  Cemetery,  where  the  crop  of  little  white 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  477 

crosses  thickened  every  day.  The  blue  and  white  irises  had 
bloomed  and  withered  upon  those  two  graves  where  her  adopted 
mother  and  her  brave  young  lover  lay  before  the  dawning  of 
that  day  and  the  nuns  prayed  and  Saxham  hoped  for. 

It  was  his  bitter-sweet,  joy  to  be  with  her  constantly,  striving 
with  all  his  splendid  powers  of  brain  and  body  to  brace  the 
shattered  nerves,  and  restore  the  exhausted  strength,  and  lead 
the  darkened  mind  back  gently  and  by  degrees  towards  the 
light. 

She  did  not  shrink  from  him  now,  but  would  answer  his 
questions  submissively,  and  give  him  her  hand  mechanically  at 
meeting  and  parting.  Saxham  had  not  the  magnetic  influence 
over  shy  and  backward  children  that  another  man  possessed. 
She  would  smile  and  brighten  when  she  saw  him  coming,  up- 
right and  alert  as  ever,  though  bearing  heavy  traces  now  in  the 
haggard  lines  and  deep  hollows  of  his  face,  in  the  greying  hairs 
above  his  temples  and  in  the  close-clipped  brown  moustache, 
as  in  the  Quixote-like  gauntness  of  the  figure  that  had  never 
carried  much  flesh,  of  the  long  struggle  of  close  on  seven 
months'  duration. 

The  pleasant  little  whistle  would  die  upon  his  lips  when  he 
saw  her  sitting  by  the  Mother's  grave,  plaiting  grasses  while 
the  Sister  sewed,  or  making  clumsy  babyish  attempts  at  drawing 
on  her  little  slate.  From  this  she  disliked  to  be  parted,  so  her 
gentle  nurses  fastened  it  to  one  end  of  a  long  ribbon,  and  its 
pencil  to  the  other,  and  tied  the  ribbon  about  her  waist. 

One  day,  as  the  Colonel  stooped  to  speak  to  her,  his  keen 
glance  noted  that  the  wavering  outline  of  a  house  stood  upon 
the  little  slate.  The  living  descendant  of  the  primitive  savage 
who  had  outlined  the  forms  of  men  and  beasts  upon  the  flank 
of  the  great  boulder  when  this  old  world  was  young  would 
have  scorned  the  drawing,  and  with  good  reason.  It  was  so 
feeble  and  wavering  an  attempt  to  convey,  in  outline,  the  idea 
of  a  white  man's  dwelling. 

The  roof  sagged  wonderfully,  and  the  chimneys  were  at 
frenzied  angles  with  the  sides  of  the  irregular  cube,  with  its 
four  windows  of  impossibly  varying  size,  and  the  oblong  patch 
that  meant  a  door  between  them.  Above  the  door  was  another 
oblong,  set  transversely,  and  rather  suggesting  a  tavern  sign. 

There  were  some  clumsily  indicated  buildings,  possibly  sheds 
and  stables  of  daub  and  wattle,  eking  out.  the  ramshackle 
house.  Behind  it  and  to  the  left  of  it  were  scrawls  that  might 
have  been  meant  for  trees.  An  enclosure  of  spiky  lines  might 


478  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

have  indicated  an  orchard-hedge.  And  there  were  things  in 
the  middle  distance,  also  to  the  left,  that  you  might  accept  as 
beehives  or  as  native  kraals.  The  man  who  looked  at  them 
knew  they  were  native  kraals.  He  drew  in  his  breath  sharply, 
and  the  fold  between  his  eyebrows  deepened,  as  he  scanned  the 
clumsy  drawing  on  the  slate.  Without  those  rude  lines  in  the 
foreground  to  the  right  of  the  house,  enclosing  a  little  kopje  of 
boulders  and  a  low,  irregular  grave-mound,  the  drawing  would 
have  meant  nothing  at  all,  even  to  the  eye  of  a  practised  scout, 
except  a  tavern  on  the  lonely  veld.  The  grave  at  the  foot  of 
the  little  kopje  located  the  spot. 

"  A  veld  hotel  in  the  Orange  Free  State — a  wretched  shanty 
of  the  usual  corrugated-iron  and  mud-wall  type,  in  the  high 
grass  country  between  Driepoort  and  Kroonfontein." 

He  heard  the  wraith  of  his  own  voice  speaking  to  the  dead 
woman  who  lay  under  the  fading  irises  at  his  feet.  He  saw 
her  with  the  mental  vision  quite  clearly.  Her  great  purple- 
grey  eyes  regarded  his  upon  an  equal  level,  and  they  were 
inscrutable  in  their  strange,  secret  defiance,  and  indomitable  in 
the  determination  of  their  regard. 

Why  had  she  been  so  bent  upon  hiding  the  trail  ?  Why  had 
she  distrusted  him? 

He  bent  upon  one  knee  in  the  grass  beside  the  slender 
shrinking  figure,  woman's  and  yet  child's,  and  held  out  the 
little  slate  to  her,  and  said,  with  the  smile  that  even  backward 
children  could  not  resist: 

"Did  you  draw  this?" 

She  nodded,  looking  shyly  up  at  him  from  under  her  sweep- 
ing black  lashes  with  great  wistful  eyes.  He  went  on,  point- 
ing with  a  slender  grass-blade  to  each  object  as  he  named  it: 

"  It  is  a  house,  and  these  are  sheds  and  stables,  and  this  is 
an  orchard,  and  here  the  Kaffirs  live.  But  who  lives  in  the 
house  ?  " 

She  whispered,  with  a  look  of  secret  fear: 

'  The  man  lives  there.     And  the  woman." 

"  Tell  me  the  man's  name." 

She  breathed,  after  a  hesitation  that  was  full  of  troubled  ap- 
prehension : 

"  Bough." 

A  red  flush  mounted  in  his  thin  cheek,  and  he  drew  his 
breath  in  sharply.  He  asked: 

"  Does  anyone  else  live  in  the  house?  " 


ONE  BRAVER  THING  479 

She  reflected  with  a  knitted  brow.     He  helped  her. 

"  I  do  not  mean  the  travellers — the  men  and  women  who 
come  driving  up  in  Cape-carts  and  transport-waggons,  and 
drive  away  again,  but  someone  who  lives  with  Bough  and  the 
woman.  She  had  been  at  the  tavern  a  long,  long  time,  though 
she  is  so  young  and  so  little.  Try  to  remember  her  name." 

The  knitted  brow  relaxed,  and  the  beautiful  dim  eyes  had 
almost  a  smile  in  them. 

"  It  is  '  the  Kid.' " 

"  Try  and  think.     Has  she  no  other  name?  " 

She  shook  her  head.  He  gave  up  that  trail  as  lost,  and 
moved  the  grass-blade  to  another  part,  of  the  drawing  on  the 
slate. 

"  Tell  me  what  this  is." 

She  answered  at  once: 

"  It  is  the  Little  Kopje.  The  English  traveller  made  it 
when  he  put  the  dead  woman  in  the  ground." 

His  heart  beat  heavily,  and  the  hand  that  pointed  with  the 
grass-blade  shook  a  little. 

"  Where  is  the  man  who  buried  the  dead  woman  and  built 
the  Little  Kopje?" 

She  pointed  to  the  rude  oblong  that  was  meant  for  a  grave. 

"  There."  The  slender  finger  climbed  the  heap  of  boulders. 
"  And  there  is  where  the  Kid  sits  when  she  is  a  bad  girl  and 
runs  away."  She  peeped  up  in  his  face  almost  slyly.  "  Then 
they  call  her:  'You  Kid,  come  here!  Dirty  little  slut,  take 
the  broom  and  sweep  out  the  bar!  Idle  little  devil,  fetch 
water  for  the  kitchen ! ' '  Her  smile  was  peaked  and  elfish. 
She  laid  a  cunning  finger  beside  her  pursed-up  lips.  "  But 
though  Wiey  scold  and  call  bad  names,  they  never  come  and 
fetch  her  down  off  the  Little  Kopje.  Beat  her  when  she  comes 
in,  and  serve  her  right  the  impudent  little  scum!  But  never 
come  near  the  Little  Kopje,  because  of  the  spook  the  Basuto 
boy  saw  there  one  night  when  the  moon  was  big  and  shining 
white." 

He  said,  with  infinite  pity  in  his  tone,  and  a  compassionate 
mist  rising  in  those  keen  bright  eyes  of  his: 

"  They  are  cruel  to  the  Kid,  both  Bough  and  the  woman  ?  " 

She  began  to  shake.  The  guardian  Sister,  who  sat  sewing 
a  little  way  behind  her,  looked  up  anxiously  at  her  charge.  He 
pacified  her  with  a  glance,  and,  taking  one  of  the  slender 
trembling  hands  in  a  firm,  kind  clasp,  repeated  his  question: 

"Always  cruel,  cruel.     But  Bough " 


480  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

A  spasm  contracted  her  face.  At  the  base  of  the  slender 
throat  something  throbbed  and  throbbed.  She  whispered 
brokenty : 

"  When  the  woman  went  away " 

Her  slender  fingers  closed  desperately  upon  his.  Her  heart 
shook  her,  and  Fear  was  in  her  eyes.  Her  voice  vibrated  and 
shuddered  at  her  white  lips  as  a  caught  moth  vibrates  and 
shudders  in  a  spider-web.  She  began  again: 

"  When  the  woman  went  away,  Bough " 

Her  eyes  quailed  and  flickered ;  the  waxen  face  of  her  was 
convulsed  by  a  sudden  spasm  of  awful  fear.  The  muscles  of 
her  whole  body  stiffened  in  the  immovable  rigor  of  terror. 
Only  her  head  jerked  from  side  to  side,  like  that  of  some  timid 
creature  of  the  wilds  held  captive  in  crushing  folds  or  crunch- 
ing fangs.  And  he  comprehended  all,  and  understood  all,  in 
one  lighting  leap  of  intuition,  as  he  saw. 

"  Hush ! "  He  stopped  her  with  his  authoritative  eyes  and 
the  firm,  reassuring  pressure  of  his  hand.  "  Forget  that — 
speak  of  it  no  more:  Try  and  tell  me  who  lives  here,  under 
these  grasses  and  flowers." 

He  moved  the  hand  he  held  to  touch  them,  and  the  spasm 
that  contracted  her  features  relaxed,  and  the  terror  died  out 
of  her  eyes,  as  though  some  soothing,  healing  virtue  was  con- 
veyed to  her  by  the  mere  contact  with  that  sacred  earth.  He 
went  on: 

"  She  was  very  noble,  very  pure,  and  very  beautiful.  Every- 
one loved  her,  and  her  life  was  spent  in  doing  good.  You 
were  dear  to  her — inexpressibly  dear  to  her.  She  used  to  call 
you  her  dearest,  daughter.  Tell  me  who  she  was." 

Her  face  quivered,  and  in  the  depths  of  her  dim,  vague  eyes 
a  beam  of  the  golden  light  of  old  was  rekindled. 

"  She  was  the  Lady.    When  will  she  come  again  ?  " 

He  raised  his  hand  and  pointed  to  the  sky. 

"  When  that  is  rolled  away,  and  the  Sign  of  the  Cross  shines 
from  the  east  to  the  west,  and  from  the  north  to  the  south,  and 
the  King  of  Glory  comes  with  His  Angels  and  His  Saints,  we 
shall  see  her  again,  Lynette " 

His  voice  broke.  He  laid  the  cool,  delicate,  nerveless  hand 
back  upon  his  knee,  and  rose,  for  the  Sister  was  folding  up  her 
sewing.  He  looked  long  after  the  girlish  figure  as  it  was  led 
away. 

He  understood  everything  now.  He  knew  why  the  mother- 
plover  had  trailed  her  wing  in  the  dust,  striving  to  lead  the 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  481 

footstep  of  the  stranger  aside  from  the  secret  nest.  He  stooped 
and  gathered  a  blade  or  two  of  grass,  and  a  few  crumbs  of  red, 
sandy  earth,  from  the  grave  at  his  feet,  and  kissed  them,  and 
folded  them  reverently  in  an  envelope,  and  hid  the  little  packet 
in  his  breast  before  he  went. 

That  evening  there  were  pillars  and  banks  of  dust  on  the 
north-west  horizon,  and  the  flashes  of  lyddite  and  the  booming 
of  artillery  told  patient  Gueldersdorp  that  the  Relief  was  very 
near.  A  few  hours  later  they  had  lamp-signalled  brief  details 
of  the  battle  with  Huysmans,  ending  with  "  Good-night "  and 
the  promise  to  fight  their  way  in  next  morning.  Later  still 
eight  troopers  in  khaki,  jaunty  ostrich-tips  in  their  smasher 
hats,  rode  into  the  little  battered  village  town  that  huddled  on 
the  dumpy  hill-top,  and  all  the  waiting  world  was  gladdened 
with  the  news.  And  London  called  on  a  quiet  elderly  lady, 
to  tell  her  what  the  man,  her  boy,  had  done. 

The  name  of  that  little  hamlet  town  has,  cruelly  enough, 
passed  into  a  byword — a  synonym  for  everything  that  is  rowdy, 
vulgar,  apish  in  the  English  character,  with  the  dregs  stirred 
up.  But  yet  it  will  ring  down  the  silver  grooves  of  Time  as 
long  as  time  shall  be. 

Do  I  wander  from  the  thread  of  my  story — I  who  have 
dressed  my  puppets  in  the  brave  deeds  of  those  who  strove  and 
endured  and  suffered,  to  what  a  glorious  end? 

Great  writers  lay  down  plans,  formulate  elaborate  synopses. 
Not  so  I,  who  out  of  all  wreaths  that  Fame  holds  yet  in 
her  lap  to  give  away,  shall  never  call  one  laurel  mine. 

A  wandering  wind  came  sighing  past  my  ears  one  night  upon 
the  Links  at  Herion,  burdened  with  this  story  it  had  to  tell. 
Before  then  it  had  only  blown  in  fitful  gusts.  Then  again 
it  blew  steadily.  I  had  caught  some  whispers  from  it  some  years 
before.  On  the  deck  of  the  great,  populous,  electric-lighted 
ocean-hotel  that  was  hurrying  me  across  the  Atlantic,  racing  the 
porpoise-schools  to  get  to  New  York  City,  and  later  to  Wash- 
ington, when  the  red  sunset  fires  burned  low  behind  the  Capitol, 
it  spoke  to  me  in  the  wonderful,  beloved  voice  I  shall  never 
hear  on  earth  any  more.  Yet  once  more  the  wind  came  faintly 
sighing,  in  the  giant  blue  shadow  of  Table  Mountain;  it  blew 
at  Johannesburg,  six  thousand  feet  above  sea-level,  in  a  raging 
cyclone  of  red  gritty  dust.  Again  it  came,  stirring  the  celadon- 
green  carpet  of  veld  that  is  spread  at  the  feet  of  the  Magalies- 
berg  Ranges,  that  were  turquoise-blue  as  the  scillas  growing  in 
the  South  Welsh  garden  that  lies  before  the  window  where  I 


482  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

write,  this  variable  April  day.  But  it  blew  with  a  most  insist- 
ent note  on  the  dumpy  hill-top  where  they  have  rebuilt  the 
ridiculous,  glorious  village  that  gave  birth  to  deeds  worthy  of 
the  Age  Heroic,  about  whose  sand-bagged  defences  nightly  pa- 
trolled a  Sentinel  who  never  slept. 

Gueldersdorp  tumbled  out  of  bed  at  three-thirty  to  see  the 
troops  march  in  by  the  cold  white  morning  moonlight  that 
painted  long  indigo-blue  shadows  of  marching  horsemen  and 
rolling  guns,  drawn  by  many  horses,  and  huge-teamed  baggage- 
wagons,  eastward  over  the  bleached  dust. 

I  dare  not.  attempt  to  describe  the  indescribable.  Zulu  and 
Barala,  Celestial  and  Hindu,  welcomed  the  Relief  each  after 
his  own  manner,  and  were  glad  and  rejoiced.  But  of  these 
haggard  men  and  emaciated  women  of  British  race  I  can  but 
say  that  in  them  human  joy  attained  the  climax  of  a  sacred 
frenzy — that  human  gratitude  and  enthusiasm,  loyalty  and 
patriotism,  reached  the  pitch  at  which  the  mercury  in  the  ther- 
mometer of  human  emotion  ceases  to  record  altitudes. 

At  its  height,  when  the  last  fort  had  fallen  to  England  and 
the  flag  of  the  United  Republics  had  fluttered  down  from  the 
tree  whence  it  had  waved  so  long,  and  the  Union  Jack  went  up 
to  frantic  cheering,  and  the  retreating  cloud  of  dust,  on  the 
horizon  told  of  the  exit  of  the  enemy  from  the  Theatre  of  War, 
Saxham  played  his  one  trump  card  in  the  game  that  meant  life 
and  death  to  him,  and  life,  and  everything  that  made  life  worth 
living,  to  one  other. 

You  are  to  see  the  hulking  Doctor  with  the  square-cut  face, 
his  grim  under-jaw  more  squarely  set  than  ever,  his  blue  eyes 
smouldering  anxiety  under  their  glooming  brows,  trying  to  coax 
a  pale,  bewildered  girl  to  take  a  walk  with  him.  She  would  at 
length,  provided  Sister  Tobias  walked  on  the  other  side  and 
held  her  hand.  So  this  party  of  three  plunged  into  the  boiling 
whirlpool  of  joyous  Gueldersdorp. 

People  were  singing  "  God  Save  the  Queen,"  and  the  "  Red, 
White,  and  Blue,"  "  Auld  Lang  Syne  "  and  "  Rule  Britannia," 
all  at  once  and  all  together,  and  playing  the  tunes  of  them  on 
mouth-organs  and  concertinas.  They  were  shaking  hands  with 
one  another  and  everybody  else,  and  shedding  tears  of  joy,  and 
borrowing  the  pocket-handkerchiefs  of  sympathetic  strangers  to 
dry  them,  or  leaving  them  undried.  They  were  crowding  the 
Government  kitchens,  drinking  the  healths  of  the  officers  and 
men  of  Great  Britain's  Union  Brigade  in  hot  soup  and  hot 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  483 

coffee.  They  were  clustered  like  bees  upon  the  most  climb- 
able  house-tops,  watching  those  retiring  dust-clouds  in"  the  dis- 
tance, and  the  nearer  movements  of  their  friends  and  allies; 
they  were  hearing  the  experiences  of  dust-stained  and  travel- 
worn  Imperialists,  and  telling  their  own ;  and  one  and  all,  they 
were  thanking  God  Who  had  led  them,  through  bodily  fear, 
and  mental  anguish,  and  bitter  privations,  to  hail  the  dawn  of 
this  most  blessed  day. 

The  electrical  atmosphere,  the  surge  of  the  multitude,  the 
roar  of  thousands  of  voices,  the  gaze  of  thousands  of  eyes,  had 
its  effect  upon  the  girl.  She  trembled  and  flushed  and  paled. 
Her  breath  came  quick  and  short.  She  threw  back  her  head 
and  gasped  for  air.  But  she  did  not  wish  to  be  taken  back  to 
the  Convent  bomb-proof.  She  shook  her  head  when  Sister 
Tobias  suggested  that  they  should  return. 

And  then  some  of  the  women  whom,  she  had  helped  to  nurse 
in  hospital  saw  her,  and  recognized  her,  and  came  about  her 
with  pitiful  words  and  compassionate  looks — not  only  for  her 
own  sake,  but  for  that  dead  woman's  whose  adopted  daughter 
they  knew  her  to  have  been. 

"  You  poor,  blessed,  innocent  lamb !  "  They  crowded  about 
her,  kissing  her  hands  and  her  dress,  and  Sister  Tobias's  shabby 
black  habit.  "  Lord  help  you ! "  they  mourned  over  her. 
"  Christ  pity  you,  and  bring  you  to  yourself  again ! " 

"Why  are  you  so  sorry?"  Lynette  asked  them,  knitting  her 
delicate  brown  brows,  and  peering  in  their  tearful  smiling  faces. 
"  No,"  she  corrected  herself ;  "  I  mean  why  are  you  so  glad  ?  " 

"  Glad  is  ut,  honey!"  screamed  a  huge  Irishwoman,  throw- 
ing a  brawny  red  arm  about  the  shrinking  figure  and  hugging 
it.  "  Begob,  wid  the  Holy  Souls  dancin'  jigs  in  Purgatory,  an' 
the  Blessed  Saints  clappin'  their  ban's  in  Heaven,  we  have  ray- 
son  to  be  glad.  Whirroosh!  Ould  Erin  for  ever — an'  God 
save  the  Cornel !  " 

She  yelled  with  all  the  power  of  her  Celtic  lungs,  plucked  off 
her  downtrodden  shoes,  slapped  their  soles  together  smartly, 
and,  with  a  gesture  of  royal  prodigality,  tossed  them  right  and 
left  into  the  air,  performed  a  caper  of  surprising  agility  on 
elephantine,  blue-yarn  stocking-covered  feet,  and  was  carried 
away  by  a  roaring  surge  of  the  joyous  crowd,  vociferating. 

Saxham  felt  the  slender  hand  of  his  charge  tighten  upon  his 
arm,  and  his  heart  leaped  as  he  noted  the  working  of  the  sensi- 
tive face  and  the  heaving  of  the  small,  nymph-like  bosom  under 
the  thin  material  of  her  dress.  He  hoped,  he  believed  that  a 


484  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

change  was  taking  place  in  her.  He  said  to  himself  that  the 
delicate  "mechanism  of  her  braiw,  clogged  and  paralyzed  by  a 
great  mental  shock,  was  revitalizing,  storing  energy,  gaining 
power;  that  the  lesion  was  healing;  that  she  would  recover — 
must  recover. 

Then  his  quick  eye  saw  fatigue  in  her.  They  took  her  back 
out  of  the  dust  and  the  clamour  and  the  crowd,  back  to  the 
quiet,  of  the  Cemetery. 

It  happened  there.  For  as  she  stood  again  beside  the  long, 
low  mound  beneath  which  the  heart  that  had  cherished  her  lay 
mouldering  they  saw  that  the  tears  were  running  down  her 
face  and  that  her  whole  body  was  shaken  with  sobbing.  And 
then,  as  a  wild  tornado  of  cheering,  mingled  with  drifts  of  mar- 
tial music,  swept  northwards  from  Market  Square,  she  fell 
upon  her  knees  beside  the  grave,  and  cried  as  if  to  living  ears: 

"  Mother,  oh  Mother,  the  Relief !  They're  here !  Oh,  my 
own  darling — to  be  glad  without  you!  .  .  ." 

She  lay  there  prone,  and  wept  as  though  all  the  tears  pent 
up  in  her  since  that  numbing  double  stroke  of  the  Death 
Angel's  sword  were  flowing  from  her  now.  And  Sister  Tobias, 
glancing  doubtfully  up  at  Saxham's  face,  saw  it  transfigured 
and  irradiated  with  a  great  and  speechless  joy.  For  he  knew 
that  the  light  had  come  back  to  the  beautiful  eyes  he  loved,  and 
that  the  Future  might  yield  its  harvest  of  joy  yet,  even  yet,  for 
the  Dop  Doctor  he  credited  in  his  own  blindness. 


LVI 

THEY  were  standing  together  in  the  same  place  two  months 
later  when  he  told  her  all,  and  asked  her  to  be  his  wife  in  his 
own  brusque  characteristic  way. 

"  You  have  been  so  good,  so  kind,"  she  said,  in  rather  formal 
phrase,  but  with  her  sweet  eyes  shining  through  tears  and  her 
sensitive  lips  trembling.  "  You  have  shown  yourself  to  be  so 
noble  in  your  unselfish  care  for  others,  in  your  unsparing  efforts 
for  the  good  and  benefit  of  everyone " 

"  Put  that  by,"  said  Saxham  rather  roughly,  "  and  please  to 
look  at  me,  Miss  Mildare." 

He  had  never  called  her  Lynette  since  her  recovery  or  touched 
the  pretty  hand  he  coveted  unless  in  formal  greeting. 

"  Put  all  that  by.  You  see  me  to-day  as  you  have  seen  me 
for  months  past,  conscientious  and  cleanly,  sober  and  sane,  in 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  485 

body  as  in  mind,  discharging  my  duty  at  the  Hospital  and  else- 
where as  well  as  any  other  man  possessing  the  special  qualifica- 
tions it  demands.  Pray  understand  that  I  am  not  a  philan- 
thropist, and  have  never  posed  as  one.  For  the  sake,  first  of 
a  man  who  believed  in  me,  and  secondly  of  a  woman  whom  I 
love — and  you  are  she — I  have  done  what  I  have." 

He  squared  his  great  shoulders  and  stood  up  before  her,  and, 
though  his  face  had  never  had  any  charm  for  her,  its  power  went 
home  to  her  and  its  passion  thrilled. 

"  I  play  no  part.  The  man  I  seem  to  be  I  am.  But  up  to 
seven  months  ago,  before  the  siege  began,  I  was  known  in  this 
town,  and  with  reason,  as  the  Dop  Doctor." 

He  saw  recollection  waken  in  her  eyes,  and  nerved  himself 
to  the  sharp  ordeal  of  changing  it  to  repulsion  and  disgust. 

"  You  have  heard  that  name  applied  to  me.  It  conveyed 
nothing  loathsome  to  your  innocent  mind.  You  once  repeated 
it  to  me,  and  were  about  to  ask  its  meaning.  I  had  it  in  my  mind 
then  to  enlighten  you,  and  for  the  mean  and  cowardly  baseness 
that  shrank  from  the  exposure  I  have  to  pay  now  in  the  " — 
a  muscle  in  his  pale  face  twiched — "  the  exquisite  pain  it  is  to 
me  to  tell  you  to-day." 

"Then  do  not  tell  me."  She  said  it  almost  in  a  whisper. 
"  Dr.  Saxham,  I  beg  you  most  earnestly  to  spare  yourself." 
She  dropped  her  eyes  under  the  fierce  earnestness  of  his  and 
knitted  her  cold  little  hands  in  one  another.  "  Please  leave  the 
rest  unsaid,"  she  begged,  without,  looking  at  him. 

"  It  cannot  be,"  said  Saxham.  "  Miss  Mildare,  the  Dop 
Doctor  was  merely  another  sobriquet  for  the  Town  Drunkard. 
And  now  you  know  what  you  should  have  known  before  if  I 
had  not  been  a  coward  and  a  knave." 

She  turned  her  ejres  softly  upon  him,  and  they  could  not  rest, 
it  seemed  to  her,  upon  a  man  of  braver  and  more  lofty  bearing. 

"  I  was  the  Town  Drunkard,"  Saxham  went  on,  in  the  cold, 
clear  voice  that  cut  like  a  knife  to  the  intelligence.  "  Known 
in  every  liquor-saloon,  and  familiar  to  every  constable,  and  a 
standing  butt  for  the  clumsy  jests  that  the  most  utter  dolt  of  a 
Police  Magistrate  might  splutter  from  the  Bench."  His  jar- 
ring laugh  hurt  her.  "  The  Man  in  the  Street,  and  the  Woman 
of  the  Street,  for  that  matter — pardon  me  if  I  offend  your  ears, 
but  the  truth  must  be  told — were  my  godfather  and  my  god- 
mother, and  they  gave  me  that  name  between  them.  You  are 
trembling,  Miss  Mildare.  Sit  down  upon  that  balk,  and  I 
will  finish." 


486  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

There  was  a  remnant  of  timber  lying  near  that  had  been 
used  in  the  construction  of  a  gun-mounting.  She  moved  to  it 
and  sat  down,  and  the  Doctor  went  on: 

"  I  am  not  going  to  weary  you  with  the  story  of  how  I  came 
to  be — what  I  have  told  you.  But  that  I  had  lived  a  clean  and 
honourable  and  temperate  life  up  to  thirty  years  of  age — when 
my  world  caved  in  with  me — I  swear  is  the  very  truth !  " 

She  said  gently:  "  I  can  believe  it,  Dr.  Saxham." 

"  Even  if  you  could  not  it  would  not  alter  the  fact.  And 
then,  at  the  height  of  my  success,  and  on  the  brink  of  a  mar- 
riage that  I  dreamed  would  bring  me  the  fulfilment  of  every 
hope  a  man  may  cherish,  one  impulse  of  pity  and  charity  towards 
a  wretched  little  woman  brought  me  ruin,  ruin,  ruin ! " 

Pity  for  a  wretched  woman  had  brought  it  all  about.  She 
was  glad  to  see  the  Saxham  of  her  knowledge  in  that  Saxham 
whom  she  had  not  known.  He  folded  his  great  arms  upon  his 
broad  breast  and  went  on : 

"  Nothing  was  left  to  me.  Everything  was  gone.  Rehabili- 
tation in  the  eyes  of  the  Law — for  I  gained  that  much — did  not 
clear  me  in  the  eyes  of  Society — that  hugs  the  secret  criminal 
to  its  heart  in  the  full  consciousness  of  what  his  deeds  are,  and 
shudders  at  the  innocent  man  upon  whom  has  once  fallen  the 
shadow  of  that  grim  and  false  and  bloody  Idol  that  civilization 
misnames  Justice.  I  was  cast  out.  Even  by  the  brother  I 
had  trusted  and  the  woman  I  had  loved.  I  had  in  a  vague  way 
believed  in  God  until  then;  I  know  I  used  to  pray  to  Him  to 
bless  those  I  loved  and  help  me  to  achieve  great  things  for  their 
sakes.  But  nothing  at  all  was  left  of  that  except  a  dull  aching 
desire  to  throw  back  in  the  face  of  the  Deity  the  little  He 
had  left,  for  me.  My  heart,  and  my  intellectual  powers,  and  my 
self-respect.  .  .  ." 

Her  voice  came  to  his  ears  in  the  half- whispered  words: 

"  Had  he  left  you  so  little,  after  all  ?  " 

"  Little  enough,"  said  Saxham  doggedly,  "  compared  with 
what  I  had  lost.  And  as  it  is  the  privilege  of  the  Christian 
to  blame  either  the  Almighty  or  the  Devil  for  whatever  ills  are 
brought  on  him  by  his  own  blind,  reckless  challenging  of  the 
Inevitable — termed  Fate  and  Destiny  by  classical  Paganism — 
so  I  found  myself  at  odds  with  One  I  had  been  taught  to  call 
my  Maker." 

In  His  own  acre,  close  to  her  beloved  dead,  with  all  those 
little  white  crosses  marking  where  other  dust  that  had  once 
praised  Him  with  the  human  voice  lay  waiting  for  the  summons 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  487 

of  the  Resurrection,  it  was  incredibly  awful  to  her  to  hear  Him 
thus  denied.  She  grew  pale  and  shuddered,  and  Saxham  saw. 

"  You  see  that  I  wish  to  be  honest  with  you,  and  open  and 
above-board.  I  would  not  ever  have  you  say  to  yourself,  *  This 
man  deceived — this  man  misled  me,  wishing  me  to  think  him 
better  than  he  was.'  There  is  not  much  more  to  tell  you — save 
that  I  took  what  money  remained  to  me  at  the  bank  and  from 
the  sale  of  my  last  possessions — about  a  thousand  pounds — and 
shook  the  dust  off  my  shoes,  and  came  out  here,  drunk,  to  carry 
out  my  purpose  of  self-degradation  to  the  uttermost.  And  I 
became  a  foul  beast  among  beasts  that  were  even  fouler,  but 
less  vile  and  less  shameful  because  their  mental  and  moral  stan- 
dard was  infinitely  lower  than  my  own.  And  they  gave  me  the 
name  you  know  of."  His  voice  had  the  ring  of  steel  smitten  on 
steel.  He  drew  himself  up  with  a  movement  of  almost  savage 
pride,  and  the  knotted  veins  swelled  on  his  broad  white  fore- 
head, and  his  blue  eyes  blazed  under  his  thunderous  smudge 
of  black  eyebrows. 

"  The  name  you  know.  It  used  to  be  called  after  me  when 
I  reeled  the  streets — they  whispered  it  afterwards  as  I  rode 
by.  To-day  it  is  forgotten."  His  nostrils  quivered,  and  he 
threw  out  his  hands  as  if  with  that,  action  he  tossed  something 
worthless  to  the  winds.  "  Miss  Mildare,  I  have  not  touched 
Drink — the  stuff  that  was  my  nourishment  and  my  sustenance, 
my  comfort  and  my  bane,  my  deadliest  enemy  and  my  only 
friend — since  that  hour  when  with  the  last  effort  of  my  Will 
I  rallied  all  my  mental  and  bodily  forces  to  resist  its  allure- 
ment." 

"  I  know  it,  Dr.  Saxham.  I  am  sure  of  it."  She  rose  and 
held  out  her  hands  to  him,  but.  he  folded  his  arms  more  closely 
over  his  starving,  famished  heart,  and  would  not  see  them  yet. 

"  You  can  be  sure  of  it.  Alcohol  is  no  longer  my  master 
and  my  god.  I  stand  before  you  a  free  man,  because  I  willed 
to  be  free."  There  was  a  little  blot  of  foam  at  one  corner  of 
his  mouth,  but  the  square  pale  face  was  composed,  even  im- 
passive. "  Once,  not  so  long  ago,  I  filled  a  place  of  standing 
in  the  profession  of  Surgery  and  Medicine ;  I  knew  what  it  was 
to  be  esteemed  and  respected  by  the  world.  For  your  dear 
sake  I  promise  to  regain  what  I  have  lost,  be  even  more  than 
I  used  to  be,  achieve  greater  things  than  are  done  by  other  men 
of  equal  powers  with  mine.  I  am  not  a  man  to  pledge  my  word 
lightly,  Miss  Mildare.  .  .  ."  His  voice  shook  now  and  his 
blue  eyes  glistened.  "  If  you  would  be  so — so  unutterably  kind 


488  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

as  to  become  my  wife,  I  promise  you  a  worthy  husband.  I 
swear  to  you  upon  what  I  hold  dearest  and  most  sacred — your 
own  life,  your  own  honour,  your  own  happiness,  never  to  give 
you  cause  to  regret  marrying  me.  For  I  may  die,  indeed,  but 
living  I  will  never  fail  you." 

There  was  a  lump  in  her  throat  choking  her.  Her  eyes  had 
gone  to  that  other  grave  some  fifty  paces  distant  from  the 
Catholic  portion  of  the  Cemetery.  There  were  freshly-gathered 
flowers  upon  it,  as  upon  the  grave  that  lay  so  near,  and  two 
gorgeous  butterflies  were  hovering  about  the  blooms,  in  mingled 
dalliance  and  greediness. 

"  You  loved  him,"  said  Saxham,  following  the  journey  of 
her  wistful  eyes.  "  Love  him  still ;  remember  him  for  every 
trait  and  quality  of  his  that  was  worthy  of  love  from  you.  But 
give  me  the  hope  of  one  day  gaining  from  you  some  shadow  of 
— of  return  for  what  I  feel  for  you.  Is  it  Passion?  I  hardly 
know.  Whether  it  is  Love,  in  the  sense  in  which  that  word  is 
employed  by  many  of  the  women  and  nearly  all  the  men  I  have 
met,  I  do  not  know  either.  But  that  it  is  the  life  of  my  life  to 
me  and  the  breath  of  my  being — you  cannot  look  at  me  and 

doubt." 

She  was  not  looking  at  him.  Her  eyes  were  on  the  little 
white  cross  above  the  Mother's  grave;  there  was  an  anxious 
fold  between  the  delicate  brown  eyebrows. 

"  You — you  wish  to  marry  a  Catholic — you,  who  tell  me 
that  you  were  once  a  Christian  and  are  now  Agnostic?" 

"  If  I  have  not  what  is  called  Faith,"  said  Saxham,  "  I  may 
at  least  lay  claim  to  the  quality  of  reverence.  And  I  honour 
the  religion  that,  has  made  you  what  you  are.  Cleave  to  your 
Church,  child — hold  to  your  pure  beliefs,  and  keep  a  little  love 
back,  Lynette,  from  your  Holy  Family  and  your  Saints  in 
Heaven,  to  give  to  a  poor  devil  who  needs  it  desperate])'." 

The  sweet  colour  flushed  her,  and  her  face  was  more  than 
beautiful  in  its  compassion.  She  said: 

"  I  pray  for  you  now,  and  I  will  always.  And  one  day  our 
Lord  will  give  you  back  the  faith  that  you  have  lost." 

"Thank  you,  dear!"  said  Saxham  humbly.  She  was  open- 
ing her  lips  to  speak  again  when  he  lifted  his  hand  and  stopped 
her. 

"  There  is  one  other  thing  I  should  like  to  make  clear.  I — 
am  not  rich.  But  neither  am  I  absolutely  poor.  Letters  that 
I  have  received  from  a  firm  of  solicitors  acting  for  the  trustees 
and  executors  of — a  near  relative  deceased,  will  prove  to  you 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  489 

that  I  am  possessed  of  some  small  property,  bringing  in  an. 
annual  income  of  something  like  two  hundred  a  year,  and  funds- 
sufficient  to  settle  a  few  thousands  upon  my  wife  by  way  of 
marriage  jointure.  Believe  me,"  he  added,  in  answer  to  her 
look,  "  I  know  you  to  be  incapable  of  a  mercenary  thought. 
But  what  I  should  have  explained  to  " — he  pointed  to  the  grave 
that  lay  near — "  to  her  I  must  make  clear  to  you.  It  could 
not  be  otherwise." 

She  went  over  to  the  grave  and  knelt  beside  it,  and  laid  her 
pure  cheek  upon  It,  and  spoke  to  the  Dead  in  a  low,  murmuring 
tone.  Saxham  knew  as  he  watched  her,  breathing  heavily,  that 
the  consent  of  the  Mother  would  never  have  been  given  to  the 
marriage  he  proposed.  That  other  obstacle  in  the  road  of  his 
desire,  the  lover  who  had  deceived,  had  been  swept  away,  with, 
the  stern  and  tender  guardian,  in  one  cataclysm  of  Fate.  He 
went  back  in  thought  to  the  ending  of  his  long  shooting-match 
a  outrance  with  Father  Noah,  and  remembered  how  he  had 
promised  himself  that  all  should  go  well  with  Saxham  provided 
Saxham's  bullet  got  home  first. 

Were  not  things  going  better  than  he  had  hoped?  She  had 
not  even  recoiled  from  him  when  he  had  told  her  of  those  de- 
graded days  of  wastrelhood.  Surely  things  were  going  well  for 
Saxham,  he  said,  as  he  waited  with  his  hungering  eyes  upon 
his  heart's  desire.  What  it  cost  him  not  to  step  over  to  her, 
lift  her  from  the  ground,  and  crush  her  upon  his  heart  with 
hot  and  passionate  kisses  and  wild  words  of  worship  he  knew 
quite  well.  But  in  that  he  was  able  to  exercise  such  a  mastery 
over  himself  and  crush  that  other  Saxham  down,  Saxham  gave- 
praise  to  that  strange  god  he  had  set  up  and  worshipped  and 
bowed  down  before,  calling  it  The  Omnipotent  Human  Will. 

She  rose  by-and-by,  and  stood  with  clasped  hands  thinking. 
It  was  very  still,  and  the  air  was  sweet  and  balmy,  and  beyond 
the  lines  of  the  defence-works  miles  upon  miles  of  sunlit  veld 
rolled  away  to  the  hills  that  were  mantled  in  clear  hyacinth- 
colour  and  hooded  with  pale  rose. 

"  If  I  married  you,  you  would  take  me  away  from  this  coun- 
try and  these  people  who  have  killed  her?  " 

She  had  the  thought  of  another  in  her  heart  and  the  name  of 
another  at  her  lips.  But  only  her  eyes  spoke,  travelling  to  that 
more  distant  grave  where  the  butterflies  were  hovering  above- 
the  flowers,  as  Saxham  answered: 

"  I  would  take  you  away  if  you  wished  it." 

"To  England?" 


490  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"  Back  to  England." 

"  I  should  see  London,  and  the  house  where  Mother  lived. 
,  .  ."  She  seemed  to  have  forgotten  Saxham,  and  to  be  utter- 
ing her  thoughts  aloud.  "  I  might  even  see  the  green  moun- 
tains of  Connemara  in  Ireland — her  own  mother  mountains 
she  used  to  call  them.  I  might  one  day  meet  people  who  are 
of  her  blood  and  name " 

"  And  of  his,"  thought  Saxham,  following  her  eyes'  wistful 
journey  to  that  other  grave. 

"  But,"  she  went  on,  "  it  would  all  depend  " — she  breathed 
with  agitation  and  knitted  her  slender  ringers  together,  and 
looked  round  at  him  with  that  anxious  wrinkle  between  her 
fine  eyebrows — "  upon  how  much  you  asked  of  me.  Suppose 

I "  His  intent  and  burning  eyes  confused  her,  and  she 

dropped  her  own  beneath  them.  "  li  I  were  to  marry  you, 
would  you  leave  me  absolutely  free  ?  " 

"  Absolutely,"  said  Saxham.  "  With  the  most  complete 
freedom  a  wife  could  possibly  desire." 

"  I  meant — a  different  kind  of  freedom  from  a  wife's."  She 
knitted  and  unknitted  her  hands.  "  It  is  difficult  to  explain. 
Would  you  be  willing  to  ask  nothing  of  me  that  a  friend  or  a 
•sister  might  not.  give?  Would  you  be  content " 

Her  transparent  skin  glowed  crimson  with  the  rush  of  blood. 
Her  bosom  laboured  with  the  hurry  of  her  breathing.  Her 
white  lids  veiled  her  eyes,  or  the  sudden  terrible  change  in  Sax- 
ham's  face  might  have  wrung  from  her  a  cry  of  terror  and 
alarm.  But  he  mastered  the  raging  jealousy  that  tore  him, 
and  said,  with  a  jarring  note  of  savage  irony  in  the  voice  that 
had  always  spoken  to  her  gently  until  then: 

"  Would  I  be  content  to  enter,  with  you  for  my  partner, 
into  a  marriage  that  should  be  practically  no  marriage  at  all — 
a  formal  contract  that  is  not  wedlock?  That,  might  never 
change  as  Time  went  on,  and  alter  into  the  close  union  that 
physically  and  mentally  makes  happiness  for  men  and  women 
who  love?  Is  that  what  you  ask  me,  Miss  Mildare? 

She  looked  at  him  full  and  bent  her  head.  And  the  man's 
heart,  that  had  throbbed  so  wildly,  stopped  beating  with  a 
sudden  jerk,  and  the  divine  fire  that  burned  and  tingled  in  his 
blood  died  out,  and  the  cold  sickness  of  baffled  hope  weighed 
on  him  like  a  mantle  of  lead.  And  the  voice  that  had  whis- 
pered to  him  so  alluringly,  telling  him  that  it  was  not  too  late, 
that  he  might  even  yet  win  this  virginal  pure,  sweetly-budding 
maiden,  and  know  the  bliss  of  being  loved  at  last,  sank  into 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  491 

silence.  His  face  was  set  like  granite,  and  as  grey.  His  eyes 
burned  darkly  under  his  heavy  brows. 

He  waited,  sombrely  and  hopelessly,  for  her  to  speak  again. 

"  There  are  such  marriages ?  " 

The  question  was  diffidently  and  timidly  put.  He 
answered : 

"  Assuredly  there  are.  But  not  between  those  who  are— 
physcially  and  mentally  sane  and  healthy  men  and  women — 
at  least,  in  my  experience.  One  case  of  three  I  am  at  liberty  to 
quote  was  that  of  an  aged  and  wealthy  woman  of  position  and 
a  young  and  rising  public  man." 

"Were — weren't  they  happy?" 

The  face  of  the  inward,  unseen  Saxham  was  twisted  in  a 
miserable  grin,  but  the  outward  man  preserved  immobility. 

"  He  enjoyed  life.  She  sat  by,  and  saw  every  day  coming 
nearer  her  death,  that  was  to  leave  him  free." 

"And  the  others?" 

She  asked  it  with  an  indrawn  breath  of  anxiety. 

"  The  second  case  was  that  of  a  man,  middle-aged  and  help- 
lessly paralyzed  by  an  accident  in  the  hunting-field,  and  of  a 
beautiful  and  high-spirited  young  woman — almost  a  girl.  She 
took  a  romantic  interest  in  him — talked  of  his  ruined  career 
and  blighted  life,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  And — they  mar- 
ried, and  she  found  her  bondage  intolerable.  ...  It.  ended  in 
his  divorcing  her.  The  decree  nisi  was  made  absolute  a  few 
days  before  I  left  London.  The  third  case  bears  more  analogy 
to  yours  and  mine." 

"  Please  go  on." 

"  There  was  no  great  disparity  of  age  between  these  two 
people.  They  were  sympathetic,  cultured,  independent  both. 
Their  views  upon  many  subjects — including  the  sex  question — 
were  identical,"  said  Saxham  slowly.  "  And  they  entered  into 
a  bond  of  union  that  had  for  its  ultimate  aim  the  culture  of; 
the  intellect  and  the  development  of  what  they  called  the  Soul.; 
The  Flesh  had  nothing  in  it;  the  Body,"  said  Saxham,  with 
a  grating  sarcasm,  "  was  utterly  ignored.  I  forget  whether  they 
were  Agnostics,  Buddhists,  or  Christians.  They  certainly  suf- 
fered for  their  creed.  But " — his  voice  softened  and  deepened 
— "  at  any  rate,  the  woman  suffered  most." 

Her  lips  parted,  her  eyes  intent  upon  him. 

"  You  have  lived  with  Sisters  of  Mercy  in  a  Convent,"  went 
on  Saxham.  "  You  know  of  their  lives  even  more  than  I — 
greatly  to  my  advantage — have  learned.  Energetic,  useful, 


492  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

stirring,  active,  never  complaining,  always  ready  to  make  the 
best  of  the  world  as  they  find  it,  and  help  others  to  do  the  same; 
always  regarding  it.  as  the  preparatory  school  or  training-college 
for  a  state  of  being  infinitely  greater,  nobler,  and  more  glorious 
than  anything  the  merely  mundane  imagination  can  conceive — 
you  can  realize  how  infinitely  to  the  nun's  advantage  is  the 
contrast  between  them  and  the  lay-woman  of  Society,  peevish, 
hysterical,  neurotic,  sensual,  and  bored.  But  before  these  chas- 
tened, temperate  bodies,  these  serene  and  well-balanced  minds 
attained  the  state  of  self-control  and  crossed  the  Rubicon  of 
resignation,  what  struggles  their  owners  must  have  undergone, 
what  ordeals  of  anguish  they  must  have  endured!  Did  that 
never  strike  you  ?  " 

Her  lips  were  pale,  and  there  were  shadows  under  her  eyes. 
She  bent  her  head. 

"  The  woman,  who  was  not  a  nun,  did  for  the  sake  of  a  man 
what  the  nun  feels  supernaturally  called  upon  to  do  for  her 
God,"  said  Saxham.  "  She  thrust  her  hand  deep  into  her 
woman's  bosom,  and  dragged  out  her  woman's  heart,  and  wrung 
from  it  every  natural  human  yearning,  and  purged  it. — or 
thought  she  purged  it — of  every  earthly  desire,  before  she  laid 
the  pulseless,  emptied  thing  down  before  his  feet  for  him  to 
tread  upon.  And  that  is  what  he  did." 

He  heard  her  pant,  softly,  and  saw  ner  hand  move  upward 
to  her  beating  heart.  His  deadly  earnestness  appalled  her. 
"Was  he  not  fighting  for  what  was  more  than  life  to  him?  He 
folded  his  arms  over  his  great  chest,  and  said : 

"  For  ten  years  he  and  she  lived  together  in  a  union  called 
ideal  by  ignorant  enthusiasts  and  high-minded  cranks.  Then 
she  dropped  and  died — victim  of  the  revolt  of  outraged  Nature. 
A  little  before  the  end  they  sent  for  me.  I  said  to  the  man: 
*  A  child  would  have  saved  her.'  And  he — I  can  hear  him  now, 
answering :  '  Ah !  but  that  would  have  nullified  all  the  use  and 
purpose  of  our  example  for  humanity.'  The  idiot — the  abor- 
tive, impossible,  dreary  idiot!  And  if  ever  there  was  a  woman 
intended  by  wholesome  Nature  to  bear  and  nurture  babes,  it 
was  that  woman,  who  died  to  prove  the  possibility  of  carrying 
on  the  business  of  living  according  to  his  damned  theories." 

His  broad  chest  heaved ;  a  mist  came  before  his  eyes;  his  deep 
vibrating  voice  had  in  it  a  passionate  appeal  to  her. 

"  The  nun  would  tell  you  that  in  the  lofty,  mystical  sense 
marriage  and  motherhood  are  hers,  '  Christ  being  her  Spouse.' 
I  echo  this  in  no  spirit  of  mockery.  But  this  woman  of  whom 


ONE   BRAVER    THING  493 

I  told  you  knew  no  vocation  and  took  no  vow.  She  merely 
tried  to  ignore  the  fundamental  truth  that  every  normal  woman 
of  healthy  instincts  was  meant  to  be  a  mother." 

He  added: 

"  And  every  husband  who  loves  his  wife  sees  his  manhood 
proved  and  perfected  in  her.  She  was  dear  and  beloved  before ; 
she  is  holy,  sacred — worshipped  in  his  eyes,  when  they  look 
upon  his  child  in  her  arms,  at  her  breast." 

Something  like  a  sob   broke   from   him.     His   heart  cried: 

"  Lynette,  have  pity  upon  yourself  and  upon  me!" 

He  stood  and  waited  for  her  reply.  She  was  so  exquisite 
and  so  full  of  womanly  allure,  and  yet  so  crystal-cold  and 
passionless,  that  he  knew  his  arguments  thrown  away,  his  en- 
treaties mere  dust  upon  the  wind. 

"  Tell  me,"  he  said  at  length,  "  do  I  fill  you  with  anti- 
pathy? Am  I  physically  repulsive  to  you,  or  disagreeable? 
Answer  me  frankly,  for  in  that  case  I  would — cease  to  urge  my 
suit  with  you,  and  go  upon  my  way,  wherever  it  might  lead 
me." 

She  looked  at  him,  and  there  was  no  shrinking  in  her  re- 
gard— only  a  gentle  friendliness,  as  far  removed  from  the  feel- 
ing he  would  have  roused  in  her  as  the  North  is  from  the 
South. 

"  I  will  tell  you  exactly  how  I  feel  towards  you."  He 
writhed  under  the  knowledge  that  it  was  possible  to  her  to 
analyze  and  to  explain.  "  I  like  you,  Dr.  Saxham.  I  am 
deeply  grateful  to  you " 

"Gratitude!"  He  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "You  owe 
me  none;  and  even  if  you  did,  what  use  is  gratitude  to  a  man 
who  asks  for  love  ?  " 

"  I  trust  you;  I  rely  upon  you,"  she  said.  "It  is — pleasant 
to  me  to  know  that  you  are  near."  A  line  of  perplexity  came 
between  the  fair  brown  eyebrows;  the  sweet  colour  in  her 
face  wavered  and  sank.  "  But — if  you  were  to  touch  me — 
to  take  me  in  your  arms — I "  She  shivered. 

"You  need  not  say  more."  If  she  was  pale,  Saxham's 
stern,  square  face  was  ashen.  His  eyes  glowered  and  fell  un- 
der hers,  and  a  dark  vein  swelled  in  the  middle  of  his  broad 
white  forehead.  "  I  understand." 

"  You  do  not  understand  quite  yet."  She  moved  away  from 
the  Mother's  grave,  saying  to  him  with  a  light  beckoning  ges- 
ture of  the  hand,  "  Please  come.  .  .  ." 

Saxham  followed  her,  hearing  the  harsh,  jeering  laughter  of 


494  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

that  other  Saxham  above  the  faint  rustle  of  her  dress.  His 
covetous,  despairing  eyes  dwelt  on  her  and  clung  about  her. 
Ah!  the  exquisite  poise  of  the  little  head,  with  its  red-brown 
waves  and  coils;  the  upright,  slender  elegance  of  shape,  like  a 
young  palm-tree;  the  long,  smooth,  undulating  step  with  which 
she  moved  between  the  graves,  picking  her  way  with  sedulous, 
delicate  care  between  the  little  crowding  white-painted  crosses ; 
the  atmosphere  of  girlish  charm  and  womanly  allurement  that 
breathed  from  her  and  environed  her!  .  .  . 

His  torpid  pulses  throbbed  again.  The  voice  began  again 
its  whispering  at  his  ear. 

"  You  cannot  live  without  her.  Accept  her  conditions. 
Better  to  be  unhappy  in  the  sight  and  sound  and  touch  of  her, 
unpossessed,  than  to  be  desperate,  lacking  her.  Accept  her  con- 
ditions with  a  mental  reservation.  Trust,  to  Time,  the  healer, 
to  bring  change  and  forgetfulness.  Or,  break  your  promise 
to  that  dead  man,  and  tell  her — as  he  would  have  had  you  tell 
her,  remember — as  he  would  have  had  you  tell  her! — that  when 
he  asked  her  hand  in  marriage,  he  was  the  wedded  husband  of 
the  dancer,  Lessie  Lavigne." 

He  knew  where  she  was  leading  him — to  Beauvayse's  grave. 
The  voice  kept  whispering,  urging  as  they  went.  He  saw  and 
heard  as  a  man  sees  and  hears  in  a  dream  the  pair  of  butterflies 
that  hovered  yet  about  the  fresh  flowers  her  hands  had  gathered 
and  placed  there.  One  jewel-winged,  diamond-eyed  insect  rose 
languidly  and  wavered  away  as  Lynette's  light  footsteps  drew 
near.  The  other  remained,  poised  upon  the  lip  of  a  honeyed, 
waxen  blossom,  with  closed,  vertically-held  wings  and  quiver- 
ing antennae,  sucking  its  sweet  juices  as  greedily  as  the  dead 
man  had  drunk  of  the  joy  of  life. 

Now  she  was  speaking: 

"  Dr.  Saxham,  I  have  brought  you  here  because  I  have  some- 
thing to  tell  you  that,  he" — her  face  quivered — "should  have 
been  told.  When  you  spoke  a  little  while  ago  of  openness  and 
candour — when  you  said  that  you  would  never  mislead  or  de- 
ceive me  for  your  own  advantage,  that  I  should  know  the 
worst  of  you  together  with  the  best — you  held  up  before  me, 
quite  unknowingly,  an  example  that  snowed  me — that  proved 
to  me " — her  voice  wavered  and  broke — "  how  much  I  am 
your  inferior  in  honesty  and  truth." 

"  You  my  inferior!"  Saxham  almost  laughed.  "/  an  ex- 
ample of  light  and  leading,  elevated  for  your  guidance!  If 
you  were  capable  of  irony " 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  495 

He  broke  off,  for  she  went  on  as  though  he  had  not  spoken: 

"  When  first  we  met — I  mean  yourself  and  me — I  remember 
telling  you,  upon  a  sudden  impulse  of  confidence  and  trust  in 
you,  what  I  had  determined  my  life-work  was  to  be " 

"  Dear,  innocent-wise  enthusiast,"  thought  Saxham,  "  dream- 
ing over  your  impossible  plan  for  cleansing  the  World's 
Augean  stable.  Beloved  child-Quixote,  tilting  at  the  Black 
Windmills,  whose  sails  are  spun  by  burning  blasts  from  Hell, 
and  whose  millstones  grind  the  souls  of  those  lost  ones  into 
impalpable  pollen,  how  dare  I,  who  was  once  the  Dop  Doctor 
of  Gueldersdorp,  love  you  and  seek  you  for  my  own?  Mad- 
ness— madness  on  the  face  of  it ! "  But,  madness  or  sanity,  he 
could  not  choose  but  love  her. 

"Your  life-work!  ...  It  was  to  be  carried  out  among 
those  others  whose  voices  you  heard  calling  you.  See,"  said 
Saxham,  with  the  shadow  of  a  smile,  "  how  I  remember  every- 
thing you  say,  or  have  ever  said,  in  my  hearing! " 

"  You  think  too  well  of  me,"  she  broke  out,  with  sudden 
energy.  Her  eyes  brimmed  and  the  tears  welled  over  her  pure 
under-lids.  She  put  up  both  her  little  hands,  and  rubbed  the 
salt  drops  away  with  her  knuckles,  like  a  child. 

"  When  I  have  told  you,  you  will  alter — you  cannot,  help  but 
alter  your  opinion !  " 

"  No !  "  denied  Saxham ;  and  the  monosyllable  seemed  to 
cfrop  from  his  grim  lips  like  a  stone.  Her  bosom  heaved  with 
short,  quick  sobs. 

"  I  meant  to  go  out  into  the  world,  and  meet  those  women 
who  think  and  work  for  women,  and  hear  all  they  have  to 
say,  and  learn  all  they  have  to  teach.  Then " 

She  was  Beatrice  again,  as  she  turned  her  face  full  on  Sax- 
ham,  and  once  more  the  virginal  veil  fell,  and  he  was  conscious 
of  strange  abysses  of  knowledge  opening  in  those  eyes. 

"  — Then  I  meant  to  seek  out  those  women  and  girls  and 
children  of  whom  I  spoke  to  you,  those  who  lie  fettered  with 
chains  that  wicked  men  have  riveted,  in  the  dark  dungeons 
that  their  tyrants  and  torturers  have  quarried  out  of  the  living 
rock,  out  of  the  reach  of  fresh  air  and  sunshine,  beyond  the 
reach  of  those  who  would  pity  and  help.  I  was  to  go  down 
to  them,,  and  comfort  them,  and  raise  them  up.  I  was  to  have 
said :  '  Trust  me,  believe  me,  listen  to  me,  follow  me.  For 
my  sorrow  is  your  sorrow,  and  my  wrong  your  wrong,  and 
my  shame  yours — O!  my  poor,  poor  unhappy  sisters!  .  .  ." 

There  was  a  great  drumming  and  surging  of  the  blood  in 


496  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

Saxham's  ears.  His  heart  beat  in  heavy,  laboured,  measured 
strokes,  like  the  tolling  of  a  death-bell.  He  saw  her  cover  her 
face  with  her  hands,  and  drop  upon  her  knees  amongst  the 
grasses  that  thinly  clothed  the  red  soil.  He  saw  the  butterfly, 
startled  from  its  feast,  rise  and  waver  away.  And  he  saw,  too, 
his  veiled  nymph,  his  virginal  white  goddess,  his  chaste,  veiled 
maiden  Artemis,  toppled  from  her  pedestal  and  lying  in  the 
gutter. 

Her  sorrow  the  sorrow  of  those  spotted  ones;  her  wrong 
theirs,  and  theirs  her  shame!  ...  So  this  was  the  sordid 
secret  that  haunted  the  depths  of  those  eyes — the  eyes  of 
Beatrice!  He  turned  his  head  away,  so  as  not  to  look  upon 
her,  and  his  face  grew  dark  with  the  rush  of  blood.  But  still 
he  heard  her  speaking,  as  a  man  hears  in  a  dream. 

"  At  school  all  the  older  girls  thought  and  talked  of  noth- 
ing but  Love,  and  most  of  the  younger  ones  did  the  same. 
.  .  .  And  I,  who  knew  the  dreadful,  cruel,  hideous  side  of 
the  thing  that  each  of  them  set  up  and  worshipped — I  who 
shuddered  when  a  man's  breath,  and  a  man's  voice  and  a  man's 
body  came  near — I  said  in  my  heart  that  Love  should  never 
find  a  dupe  and  a  slave  and  a  tool  in  me.  I  meant  to  live 
for  the  Mother,  and  be  to  those  poor  sisters  of  mine  what  she 
was — oh,  my  darling!  my  darling! — to  me.  And  all  the  while 
Love  was  coming  nearer  and  nearer,  and  at  last " 

She  swept  the  tears  from  her  face  with  the  palms  of  her 
slight  open  hands,  and  drew  a  deep,  shuddering  breath,  and 
went  on  brokenly,  with  sobs  between  the  gasped-out  sen- 
tences: 

"  — At  last  it  came.  I  never  tried  to  struggle  against  it ; 
it  wrapped  me  in  a  net  of  exquisite  sweet  softness,  that  held  me 
like  a  cage  of  steel.  I  gave  myself  up  to  the  sweetness  and 
the  joy  of  it.  I  was  unfaithful  to  those  others — I  forgot  them 
for  Beauvayse.  Oh,  why  should  Love  make  it  so  easy  to  do  un- 
lovely things,  to  be  unworthy,  to  break  promises,  and  to  be 
false  to  vows!  You  are  in  earnest  when  you  make  them  .  .  . 
you  are  proud  to  be  so  sure  that  nothing  shall  change  or  turn 
you.  ,  .  .  Then  eyes  that  are  like  strange  jewels  look  deep 
into  yours.  A  voice  that  is  like  no  other  voice  whispers  at 
your  ear.  It  says  strange,  sweet,  secret  things — things  that 
come  back  and  burn  you — and  his  breath  upon  your  cheek 
drowns  out  your  scruples  in  wave  upon  wave  of  magical,  thrill- 
ing, wonderful  sensation.  .  .  ."  She  shuddered.  "  And 
everything  else  is  blotted  out,  and  no  one  else  matters.  You 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  497 

are  not  even  sorry  that  you  have  left  off  caring.  .  .  .  Love 
has  made  you  indifferent  as  well  as  unkind." 

She  looked  up  at  Saxham  from  where  she  crouched  down  at 
his  feet  among  the  grasses,  and  her  distress  melted  some  of  the 
ice  that  was  closing  round  his  heart. 

"  Love  cannot,  be  good.  It  brings  no  peace,  no  happiness — 
nothing  but  restless  misery  and  burning  pain.  It  makes  you 
even  willing  to  deceive  him"  Her  lids  fluttered  and  she 
caught  her  breath.  "  When  another  to  whom  I  was  dear,  and 
who  knew,  said,  '  Never  tell  him — I  command  you  never  to 
tell  him ! '  I  pretended  to  myself  that  the  words  had  not  been 
spoken  out  of  pity,  because  my  darling  loved  me  too  well 
to  see  me  suffer;  and  I  told  myself  that  it  was  right  to 
obey." 

Saxham,  following  the  yearning  look  that  went,  back  to  that 
other's  grave,  heard  the  unforgettable  voice  uttering  the  com- 
mand. 

"  He  never  dreamed  of  my  miserable  secret.  He  was  so 
free,  so  frank,  so  open  himself.  He  had  nothing  to  hide — he 
was  incapable  of  deceit.  It  never  occurred  to  him — oh,  Beau! 
Beau!" 

Saxham's  face  was  set  like  a  mask  carved  in  granite,  but 
that  other  Saxham,  within  the  man  she  saw  through  her  tears, 
was  wrung  and  twisted  and  wrenched  again  in  spasms  and 
gusts  of  insane,  uncontrollable,  helpless  laughter. 

"  Nothing  to  hide — incapable  of  deceit!  "  It  seemed  to  him 
that  the  dead  man,  all  that  way  down  under  the  red  earth  and 
the  grass  and  the  flowers,  must  be  laughing,  too,  at  the  Dop 
Doctor  who  was  fool  enough  not  to  speak  out  and  end  the 
farce  for  ever. 

Should  he?  Why  not?  But  for  what  reason  now,  and  to 
what  end,  since  his  virginal-pure,  dew-pearled,  Convent  lily 
lay  trodden  in  the  mire?  And  yet,  to  look  in  those  eyes.  .  .  . 

They  did  not  falter  or  drop  under  his  again,  as  she  told  him 
in  a  few  and  simple  words  the  story  of  what  had  happened 
in  the  tavern  on  the  veld. 

"  Now  you  know  all,"  she  said ;  "  now  you  understand. 

Sister  Tobias  knows,  too,  and  there  is  one  other.  .  .  . 

I  do  not  speak  of  .  .  ." — she  shuddered  and  grew  pale — "  but 
of  a  man  whom  all  of  us  here  have  learned  to  look  up  to,  and 
believe  in,  and  trust.  No  confidence  has  ever  passed  between 
us.  I  cannot  give  you  any  reason  for  this  belief  of  mine  in 
his  knowledge  of  my  story.  I  only  feel  that  it  is  no  secret  to 


498  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

the  Colonel  whenever  he  looks  at  me  with  those  wise,  kind, 
pitying  eyes." 

There  was  a  look  in  Saxham's  eyes  that  was  not  pity.  The 
sunbeam  that  shone  through  the  loose  plait  of  her  coarse  straw 
hat,  and  gilded  the  edges  of  the  red-brown  hair-waves,  aureoled 
again  for  him  the  head  of  Beatrice. 

"  I  have  no  faith  left,  but  I  am  capable  of  reverence,"  he 
had  said  to  her. 

Now,  as  he  knelt  down  in  the  grass  before  the  little  brown 
shoes,  and  lifted  the  hem  of  her  linen  gown  and  kissed  it,  the 
hulking-shouldered  Doctor  proved  his  possession  of  the  qual- 
ity. Devouring  desire,  riotous  passion,  were  if  not  killed  in 
him,  at  least  quelled  and  overthrown  and  bound.  Pure  pity 
and  tenderness  awakened  in  him.  And  Chivalry,  all  cap-a-pie 
in  silver  mail,  rose  up  to  do  battle  for  her  against  the  world 
and  against  that  other  Saxham. 

"  I  accept  the  trust  you  are  willing  should  be  mine.  Take 
my  name — take  all  I  have  to  give.  I  make  no  reservations. 
I  stipulate  no  conditions.  I  ask  for  nothing  in  return,  except 
the  right  to  be  your  brother  and  guardian  and  defender.  Trust 
me!  The  life-work  you  have  chosen  shall  be  yours;  as  far  as 
lies  in  my  power,  I  will  help  you  in  it.  Your  pure  ends  and 
noble  aims  shall  never  be  thwarted  or  hindered.  And  have 
no  fear  of  me,  my  sweet  saint,  my  little  sister.  For  I  may  die," 
said  Saxham  once  again,  "  but,  living,  I  will  never  fail  you." 


LVII 

SAXHAM,  of  St.  Stephen's,  had  long  ago  faded  from  the  rec- 
ollection of  London  Society,  but  Saxham,  M.D.,  F.R.C.S., 
Late  Attached  Medical  Staff,  Gueldersdorp,  and  frequently 
mentioned  in  Despatches  from  that  bit  of  debatable  soil,  while 
it  was  in  process  of  debating,  was  distinctly  a  person  to  culti- 
vate. Not  that  it  was  in  the  least  easy — the  man  was  almost 
quite  a  bear,  but  his  brevity  of  speech  and  brusqueness  of  man- 
ner gave  him  a  cachet  that  Society  found  distinguished.  He 
was  married,  too — so  romantic !  married  to  a  girl  who  was  shut 
up  with  him  in  Gueldersdorp  all  through  the  Siege.  Quite 
too  astonishingly  lovely,  don't  you  know?  and  with  manners 
that  really  suggested  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain.  Where 
she  got  her  style — brought  up  among  Boers  and  blacks — was 
to  be  wondered,  but  these  problems  made  people  all  the  more 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  499 

interesting.  And  one  met  her  with  her  husband  at  all  the 
best  houses  since  the  Castleclares  had  taken  them  up.  Indeed, 
Mrs.  Saxham  was  a  relative — was  it  a  cousin?  No — now  it 
all  came  back!  Adopted  daughter,  that  was  it,  of  an  aunt — 
no,  a  step-sister  of  Lord  Castleclare,  that  ineffable  little  prig 
of  twenty-one,  who  as  a  Peer  and  Privy  Councillor  of  Ireland, 
and  a  Lord-in-Waiting  to  boot,  was  nevertheless  a  personage  to 
be  deferred  to. 

One  had  heard,  hadn't  one,  ages  ago,  of  the  famous  beauty, 
Lady  Bridget-Mary  Bawne?  Well,  that  was  the  very  person, 
who  had  been  Abbess,  or  Prioress,  or  something-else-ess  of  a 
Roman  Catholic  Sisterhood  at  Gueldersdorp,  and  died  of 
pneumonia  during  the  Siege,  or  did  she  get  shot?  That  was  it, 
poor  dear  thing,  and  how  quite  too  horrid  for  her! 

We  may  know  that  that  belated  letter  of  the  Mother's, 
written  to  her  kinswoman  when  the  first  mutterings  of  the 
storm  were  yet  dulled  by  distance,  and  the  threatening  clouds 
were  beginning  to  build  their  blue-black  bastions  and  frowning 
towers  on  the  horizon — had  got  through  at  last.  The  Bawnes, 
true  to  their  hereditary  quality  of  generous  loyalty,  threw  open 
their  doors  and  their  hearts  to  dead  Bridget-Mary's  darling, 
and  Saxham  was  undisguisedly  grateful  when  he  saw  how  she 
warmed  to  them.  But  he  gave  no  encouragement,  verbal, 
written,  or  tacit  to  their  desire  to  fulfil  the  dead  woman's 
wishes  in  the  settlement  of  a  sum  of  money  upon  Lynette.  He 
had  made  such  provision  for  her  himself  as  his  means  permitted. 
His  books  had  been  selling  steadily  for  the  past  six  years,  his 
publishers  had  paid  him  a  handsome  sum  in  royalties,  and  a 
thousand  guineas  for  the  copyright  of  a  new  work.  Plas 
Bendigaid  was  secured  to  her,  and  Saxham's  life  was  heavily 
insured,  and  the  bulk  of  the  sum  remaining  from  the  pur- 
chase of  the  furniture  and  fixtures  of  the  house  in  Harley 
Street,  with  the  practice  of  the  physician  who  was  giving  up 
tenancy,  had  been  invested  in  her  name  with  the  other  funds. 
Why  should  strangers  interfere  with  his  sole  privilege  of  work- 
ing for  her? 

"  I  should  prefer  that  the  decision  should  be  left  entirely 
to  my  wife,"  he  said,  when  the  Head  of  the  House  of  Bawne, 
with  the  pompous  solemnity  distinctive  of  a  young  man  who 
takes  himself  and  his  position  seriously,  formally  broached  the 
subject. 

"  Lady  Castleclare  has — arah ! — already  approached  Mrs. 
Saxham  on  the  question,"  said  Lord  Castleclare.  tapping  the 


500  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

shiny  surface  of  the  leather-covered  writing-table  near  which 
he  sat  with  the  long,  thin,  ivory-hued  fingers,  ending  in  long, 
narrow,  bluish-tinted  nails  that  had  descended  to  him,  with  the 
peculiar  sniffing  drawl  that  prolonged  and  punctuated  his  ver- 
bal utterance,  from  his  late  father.  "And  I  regret  to  hear 
(from  Lady  Castleclare  that  Mrs.  Saxham  gave  no  encourage- 
ment to  the  suggestion.  I  confess  myself  disappointed  equally 
with  my  wife  and  my  sister,  the  Duchess  of  Broads,  to  whom 
the  letter  was  written — the  letter  that  you  will  understand 
conveys  to  the  family  I  represent  the  last  wishes  of  one  whose 
memory  we  hold  in  the  most  sacred  love  and  reverence " 

The  Right  Honourable  Privy  Councillor  had  here  to  stop 
and  dry  his  eyes  that  were  frankly  overflowing.  Though 
short,  and  not  at  all  distinguished  of  appearance,  having  de- 
rived from  his  mother,  the  Dowager  Countess,  nee  Miss  Nancy 
Mclleevy  of  Mclleevystown,  County  Down,  certain  personal 
disadvantages  to  counterbalance  the  immense  fortune  amassed 
by  her  uncle,  the  brewer,  this  little  gentleman  of  great  affairs 
possessed  the  kindly  heart,  and  the  quick  and  sensitive  nature 
of  the  paternal  stock.  Now  he  continued: 

"  — Under  the  circumstances  you  will  permit  me  to  renew 
the  proposal  with  a  slight  modification.  The  sum  we  proposed 
to  invest  in  Government  securities  for  Mrs.  Saxham's  bene- 
fit, carrying  out  a  charge  that  we  regard  it  as  a  privilege  to 
— to  have  received — is  not  large,  merely  five  thousand  pounds." 
He  coughed.  "  Well,  now  it  has  occurred  to  me  that  Mrs. 
Saxham's  objection  to  receive  what  she  seems  to  regard  as  a 
gift  from  people  upon  whom  she  has  no  claim — that  is  how  she 
expressed  herself  to  Lady  Castleclare — might  be  got  over — if 
I  may  employ  the  expression,  by  our  settling  the  money  upon 
your  children?" 

"  Upon  our  children " 

They  were  sitting  in  Lord  Castleclare's  library  at  Bawne 
House,  Grosvenor  Square.  Great  books  in  noble  bindings 
gleamed  from  their  covered  and  latticed  shelves,  and  the  per- 
fume of  Russia  leather  and  cedar  mingled  with  the  aroma  of 
red  tobacco  in  the  air.  A  thin  fog  hung  over  the  West  End, 
deadening  the  sound  of  traffic,  and  dimming  the  polish  of  the 
tall  windows.  The  fire  burned  red  behind  bars  of  silvered 
steel,  the  ashes  fell  with  a  little  clicking  whisper.  It  seemed 
to  Saxham  that  he  could  hear  his  pierced  heart  bleeding,  drip, 
drip,  drip!  But  he  sat  like  a  man  of  stone,  his  white,  firm, 
supple  hand  clenched  upon  the  knob  of  the  chair-arm.  Then 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  501 

he  said,  looking  the  Right  Honourable  Privy  Councillor  full 
in  the  face  with  those  gentian-blue  eyes  of  his,  now  sunk  in 
caves  that  grew  deeper  day  by  day: 

"  Let  it  be  so,  my  lord.  I  am  willing,  if  my  wife  consents, 
that  the  money  should  be  settled  upon — her  children." 

He  prescribed,  at  Lord  Castleclare's  request,  for  a  political 
dyspepsia,  and  took  leave  in  his  brusque,  characteristic  way, 
and  sent  away  his  waiting  motor-brougham,  and  walked 
home,  thinking,  by  that  new  light  that  had  flashed  upon 
him. 

It  was  January,  the  London  January  of  whirling  dust-clouds 
below,  and  racing,  murky  vapours  above.  They  had  been 
settled  in  the  Harley  Street  house  four  months.  It  seemed  to 
Saxham  as  if  they  had  lived  there  for  years.  The  routine  of 
professional  life  was  closing  in  upon  him  once  again.  Patients 
thronged  to  his  door;  Hospitals,  and  Societies,  and  Institutions 
were  open  to  him  as  of  old ;  Society  courted  and  flattered  him, 
and  gushed  about  the  beauty  of  Mrs.  Saxham.  It  was  as 
though  that  celebrated  Criminal  Case,  The  Crown  vs.  Saxham, 
had  never  developed  into  ugly  shape  under  the  dirty,  stifling 
skylight  of  the  Old  Bailey. 

He  crossed  Grosvenor  Square,  and  turned  down  Brook 
Street,  thinking  as  he  went.  Pretty  women  in  furs,  their 
make-up  subdued  by  silk-gauze  veils,  nodded  to  him  from 
motor-broughams  and  victorias. 

Though  the  horse-drawn  hansom  yet  plied  for  hire,  petrol 
was  driving  brute-power  off  the  streets.  The  hooting  and 
clanking  of  the  motor-omnibus  made  Oxford  Street  hideous. 
And  that  St.  Vitus's  Dance  of  the  Tube  Railway  swept  under 
the  pavement  beneath  Saxham's  tread  as  he  had  passed  up  New 
Bond  Street.  Certainly  London  was  not  more  beautiful  or 
pleasanter  to  live  in  for  the  six  years  that  had  gone  by. 

The  Tube  Works  were  responsible  for  much.  The  Com- 
panies were  linking  up  the  North  with  the  West,  and  strings 
of  trolleys,  coupled  together  like  railway-trucks,  and  laden 
with  yellow  clay  or  great  balks  of  timber,  or  giant  scales  of 
bored  armour-plating,  or  moleskin-clad,  brawny  navvies,  pro- 
gressed through  incessantly  and  at  all  hours  the  thoroughfares 
of  the  metropolis  behind  huge,  giraffe-necked,  splay-wheeled, 
smoke-vomiting  traction-engines.  Houses  and  other  buildings 
were  being  pulled  down  to  make  stations ;  great  hoardings  were 
up,  enclosing  spaces  where  work  went  on  all  day,  amidst  clank- 
ings  and  groanings  of  machinery,  and  clouds  of  oily-smelling 


;02  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

steam,  and  where  work  went  on  all  night,  with  more  groanings 
and  more  clankings,  deplorable  shrieks  of  steam-sirens  and 
hellish  flares  that  might  have  been  reflections  from  a  burning 
tophef,  cast  upon  yet  bigger  and  denser  clouds  of  the  oily- 
smelling  steam. 

Yes,  the  big  black  opulent  city  was  greatly  changed.  But 
the  change  in  the  people,  affecting  all  ranks  and  every  class, 
was  even  greater.  There  were  compensations,  if  you  could 
balance  against  the  decay  of  good  manners  the  improvement  in 
sanitation,  or  set  against  the  crop  of  evil  sown  by  the  dissemi- 
nation of  the  vilest  literature  in  the  cheapest  printed  forms,  the 
attainableness,  by  the  poorest,  of  the  noblest  productions  of 
literary  genius.  Or  if  in  congratulating  yourself  upon  the 
marvellous  progress  of  Scientific  Inventions,  hailing  from  the 
keen-brained  West,  you  could  condone  the  degradation  of  the 
English  Language  in  the  mouths  of  Shakespeare's  countrymen 
and  countrywomen  by  the  use  of  American  slang  phrases,  com- 
mon, coarse,  obscene,  alternating  with  the  lowest  dialects  of  the 
East  End  costermonger. 

Privacy  and  reticence  had  become  unfashionable,  impossible 
in  this,  the  Era  of  the  guinea-hunting  Press-Interviewer.  The 
barriers  of  social  exclusiveness  had  given  way  before  the  push 
of  the  plutocrat.  The  Rubicon  between  Good  Society  and 
Bad  Society  had  become  invisible.  Racial  Suicide  and  Sexual 
Licence  most  hideously  prevailed,  spreading  like  some  vile 
disease  from  rank  to  rank,  and  class  to  class.  Woman  had  be- 
come less  womanly,  man  more  effeminate.  Home  was  a  word 
that  had  no  longer  any  meaning.  Religion  had  decayed ;  the 
Fear  of  God  had  been  forgotten.  But  Socialism  was  spring- 
ing up,  a  rank  and  lusty  weed  in  crude  neglected  soil  that 
might  have  been  tilled  to  good  purpose,  and  a  cheap  and  rowdy 
form  of  patriotism  was  in  a  very  healthy  state,  although  the 
Union  Jack  had  not  yet  replaced  the  Bible  in  the  Board 
Schools. 

Yes,  things  had  changed,  and  not  for  the  better.  There  was 
a  taint  upon  the  moral  atmosphere  that  made  the  material 
petrol-fumes  of  the  motor-omnibus  almost  acceptable  by  com- 
parison. The  air  of  Gueldersdorp  had  been  cleaner  even  with 
that  taint  from  the  crowded  trenches  heavy  on  it.  Things 
had  changed,  and  in  the  midst  of  all  these  changes  the  last 
sands  of  the  Great  Victorian  Age  were  running  out  of  the 
glass. 

That  wonderful  life  was  drawing  to  its    simple,    peaceful, 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  503 

noble,  profoundly  touching  close,  this  January  of  1901.  And 
its  ending  had  been  hastened  by  the  War. 

Truly  of  her  it  has  been  said,  and  shall  be,  even  when 
scholars  of  another  race  and  another  civilization,  springing 
from  the  ashes  of  this,  wrest  from  the  relics  of  an  History  of 
To-day  the  secrets  of  an  ancient  Past : 

"  She  was  not  only  the  Sovereign,  but  the  Mother  of  her 
people." 

•  •  •  •  • 

Saxham  turned  into  Cavendish  Square,  and  was  in  Harley 
Street.  The  white-enamelled  door  of  a  prosperous-looking 
corner-house  bore  a  solid  brass  plate  with  his  name.  He 
thought,  as  he  opened  the  door  with  his  Yale  key,  how  strange 
it  was  that  this,  the  very  house  he  had  planned  to  live  in  with 
Mildred,  and  had  leased,  and  beautified,  and  decorated  for 
her,  should  have  been  offered  for  his  inspection  by  the  first 
West  End  house-agent  he  applied  to  upon  returning  to  London, 
upon  whose  threshold  he  had  shaken  off  the  dust  of  his  feet  for 
ever  barely  six  years  before. 

The  practitioner  who  occupied  it — not  the  same  man  who 
had  taken  over  the  lease  and  fittings  from  Saxham,  was  ready 
to  give  up  the  house,  with  all  its  costly  appurtenances  and  up- 
to-date  appointments,  together  with  the  practice,  for  quite  a 
moderate  slice  of  that  legacy  of  thousands  that  had  come  ta 
Saxham  from  Mildred's  dead  boy.  Saxham,  realizing  the  man's 
hurry  to  realize  and  depart,  wondered  what  secret,  desperate 
motive  lay  at  the  back  of  his  hurry.  The  reason  was  soon  evi- 
dent. Like  thousands  of  other  men,  professional  and  private, 
the  physician  had  been  a  dabbler  on  the  Stock  Exchange,  and 
had  gone  in  heavily  for  South  African  mining-stock,  and  had 
been  ruined  by  the  War. 

It  was  a  year  of  ruin.  Society,  led  by  Messrs.  Washington 
P.  Jukes  and  Themistocles  K.  Mombasa,  six-foot,  full-blooded 
buck  niggers,  elegantly  scented,  white-gloved,  and  arrayed  in 
evening  garments  of  Bond  Street  cut,  danced  the  newly-im- 
ported Cake  Walk  through  its  ball-rooms  and  reception-saloons, 
with  laughter  on  its  reddened  lips,  and  paste  imitations  of  its 
family  jewels  in  its  waved  coiffure  and  on  its  powdered  bosom, 
and  Ruin  in  its  heart. 

Great  manufacturing  enterprises,  paralyzed  by  lack  of  funds 
and  lack  of  hands,  wrere  ruined.  Managers  producing  plays  to 
empty  houses  were  ruined.  Publishers  publishing  books  that 
nobody  cared  any  longer  to  buy  were  ruined.  Painters  expend- 


504  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

ing  time  and  money  and  toil  upon  pictures  that  no  longer  found 
purchasers  were  ruined.  Millions  of  smaller  folks  were  ruined 
by  the  ruin  of  their  betters.  Only  the  great  Mourning  Ware- 
houses prospered  exceedingly,  and  the  Liquor  Trade  and  the 
Drug  Trade,  the  Remount  and  Forage  Trades,  and  the  Army- 
Contractors  flourished  as  the  green  bay-tree. 

Saxham's  motor-brougham  had  gone  on  in  advance,  twisting 
knowingly  in  and  out  of  various  corkscrew  thoroughfares.  It 
was  waiting  outside  the  house  in  Lower  Harley  Street  as  the 
Doctor  reached  the  door.  The  chauffeur,  a  spare,  short  young 
man,  punctiliously  buttoned  up  in  a  long  dark  green,  white- 
faced  livery  overcoat,  a  cap  with  a  white-glazed  peak  shading 
a  lean,  brickdust-coloured  face,  with  ugly,  honest  eyes  that  are 
familiar  to  the  reader,  cocked  one  of  the  eyes  inquiringly  at 
his  employer,  and  receiving  a  sign  implying  that  his  services 
would  not  be  required  for  some  space  of  time  to  come,  pulled 
up  the  lever,  moved  on,  and  turned  down  the  side-street  where 
were  the  entrance-gates  of  the  stable-yard  that  had  been  turned 
into  a  garage.  He  had  been  in  Saxham's  employment  nearly 
two  months. 

W.  Keyse,  late  Corporal,  Gueldersdorp  Town  Guards,  had 
learned  to  clean,  manage,  and  drive  a  motor-car  belonging  to 
an  officer  of  the  Garrison  in  spare  hours  during  the  Siege. 
This  accomplishment,  with  some  other  learning  gained  in  those 
strenuous  and  bracing  times,  had  justified  him  in  answering  a 
Times  advertisement  for  a  sober,  active,  and  intelligent  young 
man,  possessing  the  requisite  knowledge  of  London — 
"Cr'rips!"  said  W.  Keyse,  "as  if  I  couldn't  pick  my  way 
about  the  Bally  Old  Dustbin  blindfolded!" — to  act  in  the 
capacity  of  chauffeur  to  a  West  End  medical  practitioner. 

An  acquaintance  who  was  a  waiter  at  a  West  End  Club 
gave  him  the  tip,  and  the  chance  came  in  the  nick  of  time,  for 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  W.  Keyse  were  up  against  it,  and  no  gay  old 
error.  "  If  you  'ad  offered  to  blooming-well  work  for  people 
for  nothing,"  said  Mrs.  Keyse,  "  her  belief  was  they  wouldn't 
'ave  'ad  you  at  the  price." 

The  Old  Shop,  as  W.  Keyse  affectionately  called  his  native 
island,  had  drawn  the  exiles  home.  Good-bye  to  the  bronzed, 
ungirdled  vastness  of  veld  and  karroo,  and  the  clear,  dark,  dis- 
tant blue  of  level-topped  mountains  bathed  in  the  pure  stimu- 
lating atmosphere  that  braces  like  champagne.  Old  England 
called  with  a  voice  there  was  no  resisting,  great  draggle-tailed, 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  505 

grimy  London  beckoned  to  her  boy  and  girl,  as  the  Dig  grey 
liner,  with  the  scarlet  smoke-stacks,  engulfed  her  mails  and 
passengers,  dipped  the  Red  Ensign  in  farewell  to  Table  Moun- 
tain, and  sped  homewards  on  even  keel  over  the  heaving  sap- 
phire plain. 

Southampton  Dock  was  a  pure  delight  to  W.  and  Mrs. 
Keyse.  The  Waterloo  Arrival  platform  sent  thrills  through 
their  boot-soles  to  the  roots  of  their  hair.  They  sat  in  the  Pit 
at  the  Oxford  that  night,  and  there  was  a  South  African  sketch 
on  with  two  of  the  chronic-est  jossers  you  ever  see,  gassing 
away  in  khaki  behind  earthworks  of  sacks  stuffed  with  straw, 
and  standing  up  to  chuck  sentimental  and  patriotic  ballads  off 
their  chests,  while  the  Enemy,  who  had  kept  up  an  intermittent 
rifle-practice  at  the  wing,  left  off — presumably  to  listen. 
"  After  being  used  to  the  Reel  Thing,"  W.  Keyse  said,  "  it  was 
enough  to  make  you  up  and  blub." 

That  was  the  first  disillusion.  Others  followed.  The  aunt 
who  had  inhabited  one  of  the  ginger-brick  almshouses  over 
aginst  'Ighg'it  Cimetery  was  dead  when  they  took  her  a  whole 
pound  of  tea  and  three-quarters  of  best-cooked  ham,  and  the 
delicacies  had  to  be  given  to  the  old  woman  next  door,  with 
whom  the  deceased  had  always  had  words.  You  couldn't  'ave 
expected  the  old  gal  to  last  much  longer,  but  still  it  was  a 
blow. 

Lobster  had  long  ago  given  'Melia  the  go-by,  they  learned, 
in  return  for  the  ham  and  the  tea,  and  they  got  her  address  and 
and  hunted  her  up  in  a  back-street  behind  the  Queen's  Crescent, 
and  W.  Keyse  failed  to  recognize  his  charmer  of  old  in  a  red- 
nosed,  frowsy  slattern,  married  to  a  sweated  German  in  the 
baking-trade  and  mother  of  two  of  the  dirtiest  kids  you  evef 

!     And  Mrs.  Keyse,  to  whom  her  William  had  expatiated! 

upon  the  subject  of  his  family,  maintained  a  portentous  dumb-; 
ness,  punctuated  with  ringing  sniffs,  during  the  visit,  and  was( 
sarcastic  on  the  bus,  and  tearfully  penitent  when  they  got  back 
to  the  Waterloo  Road  lodging  that  was  cheap  at  the  weekly 
rent,  she  said,  if  you  were  paying  for  dirt  and  live-stock. 

You  couldn't  spend  your  time  enjoying  yourself  for  ever,  she 
added  a  little  later  on,  as  their  small  joint  purse  of  savings 
dwindled  and  that  pale  ghost  that  men  call  Want  began  to 
hover  about  their  hired  bolster.  W.  Keyse  had  thought  of  so- 
liciting a  re-engagement,  at  the  fried-fish  shop  in  the  High 
Street,  Camden  Town,  but  it  had  been  swept  away  in  favour 
of  an  establishment  where  they  mended^  your  boots  while  you 


506  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

waited.  So  he  sought  elsewhere.  The  War  had  drained 
away  so  many  men,  one  would  have  thought  employment  could 
be  had  by  any  chap  who  took  the  trouble  to  walk  about  and 
look  for  it.  But  the  soles  of  W.  Keyse's  boots  were  worn  to 
their  last  thickness  of  brown  paper,  and  all  his  clothes  and  Emi- 
gration Jane's,  with  the  exception  of  the  things  him  and  her 
had  on,  had  been  pawned  before  it.  occurred  to  the  man  that 
that  kind  of  walking  ended  in  the  Workhouse.  The  woman 
had  known  it  from  the  very  beginning.  The  valorous  deeds  of 
W.  Keyse  stood  him  in  no  good  stead.  London  was  stiff  with 
liars  who  boasted  of  having  been  through  the  Siege,  and  their 
lies  were  more  ornamental  and  sparkling  than  his  truths. 

Mrs.  W.  Keyse  would  have  took  a  situation  as  General,  and 
glad,  but  there  were  family  reasons  against  that.  She  had 
broke  down  and  cried  something  dreadful  on  her  William's 
shabby  tweed  shoulder  the  morning  he  went  out  to  answer  the 
West  End  Doctor's  advertisement.  He  kissed  her  and  told 
her  to  keep  her  hair  on,  but  she  was  so  hysterical  that  he  was 
fair  afryde  to  leave  'er.  So  he  took  her  along,  and  his  good 
Angel  must  have  suggested  that. 

Cripps! — when  the  manservant  in  plain  clothes  said,  "Step 
this  way,  upstairs  please  " — W.  Keyse  and  wife  having  applied 
at  the  area  door — "  and  Dr.  Saxham  will  see  you,"  the  name, 
not  having  been  mentioned  in  the  advertisement,  which  gave 
only  the  address  and  an  initial,  imparted  to  both  an  electrical 
shock  of  surprise.  They  had  looked  a  very  small  and  very 
shabby  and  very  lost  and  lonely  little  couple  under  those  high- 
moulded  ceilings  and  upon  the  Turkish  carpets  that  covered  the 
•polished  parquet  of  the  handsomely-furnished  and  well-ap- 
pointed consulting-room  that  the  practitioner  who  had  caved 
!in  over  South  African  Gold-Mines  had  considered  an  adequate 
setting  for  his  bald-browed  and  portly  presence.  Now  both 
.curved  backbones  assumed  the  perpendicular,  and  their  wide 
^Cockney  mouths  were  wreathed  in  glad  smiles. 

The  man  sitting  in  the  Sheraton  armchair  at  the  writing- 
table  that  matched  it,  the  man  with  the  black  head  and  square 
pale  face  and  heavy  muscular  shoulders,  who  looked  up  from 
among  his  papers  and  notebooks  with  the  receiver  of  a  tele- 
phone at  his  ear,  rose  to  his  feet,  and  came  to  them  with  a 
kind,  outstretched  hand.  Saxham  never  wasted  a  word  or  for- 
got a  face.  And  here  were  two  faces  from  Gueldersdorp.  He 
shook  the  hands  that  belonged  to  them,  and  said  in  his  curt 
way: 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  507 

"How  are  you,  Mrs.  Keyse?  And  you,  Keyse?  You  may 
guess  when  I  heard  that  somebody  had  called  to  answer  my 
advertisement  I  hardly  imagined  that  two  old  patients  had 
dropped  Jown  on  me  from  the  skies." 

The  young  woman  stared  at  Saxham  with  her  mouth  agape 
and  the  tears  trickling  down  her  hollow  cheeks.  The  young 
man  swallowed  something  with  a  violent,  effort,  and.  blurted 
out: 

"  Lumme,  Doctor!  it's  more  by  'arf  like  bein'  shot  up  out 
of  the  Other  Shop — an'  landin'  in  the  middle  of  New  Jeru- 
salem. Weeks  along" — he  picked  tip  the  shabby  bowler  that 
had  rolled  upon  the  Turkey  carpet — "  for  weeks  along  I've 
been  tryin'  to  find  out  what  was  the  matter  wi'  me.  Now  I 
knows!  I've  bin  'omesick — fair  old  'omesick  for  a  sniffer  of 
the  very  plyce  I  was  'oppin'  with  'appiness  to  git  away  out  of 
four  months  back.  Good  old  Gueldersdorp !  "  He  winked 
the  wet  out  of  his  eyes  and  pointed  to  Mrs.  Keyse  with  his 
elbow.  "  An'  look  at  'er.  Doin'  a  blub  on  the  strength  of  it. 
That's  wot  it  is  to  be  a  woman.  Ain't  it,  sir?" 

Saxham's  keen  glance  took  in  the  altered  shape  of  the  thin 
girl  in  the  mended  jacket  and  the  large  and  feathered  hat  that 
topped  the  colossal  structure  of  fair,  fizzled  hair,  even  as  she 
dried  her  eyes  with  a  sixpenny  handkerchief  edged  with  cotton 
lace  and  tried  to  laugh.  He  took  the  lean  chin  of  W.  Keyse 
between  his  white,  strong,  supple  fingers,  and  turned  the 
triangular,  hollow-cheeked  face  to  the  light,  and  said,  touching 
the  little  round  blue  scar  left  by  the  enemy's  bullet  at  the 
angle  of  the  wide  left  nostril  and  the  other  mark  of  its  egress 
below  the  inner  corner  of  the  right  eye: 

"You  found  out  what  a  woman  can  be,  my  man,  when  she 
helped  to  nurse  you  at  the  Hospital." 

"Gawd  knows  I  did!"  affirmed  W.  Keyse.  "An'  since 

.she's  bin'  my  wife "  The  prominent  Adam's  apple  in  his 

thin  throat  jerked.  He  swallowed  again  as  he  looked  at  her. 
And  the  red  flew  up  in  her  pale  cheeks,  and  in  her  eyes,  as 
she  returned  the  look  of  him,  her  lover  and  her  mate,  there 
shone  the  answering  light  of  love.  And  Saxham's  face  dark- 
ened with  angry  blood,  and  his  strong,  supple  surgeon's  hand 
clenched  with  the  savage  impulse  to  dash  itself  in  the  face  of 
this  ragged,  seedy,  out-at-elbows  Millionaire  who  flaunted 
riches  in  the  face  of  his  own  beggary. 

Never,  never  would  a  woman's  eyes  kindle  with  that  sweet 
fire  in  answer  to  the  challenge  of  his  own.  Empty,  empty  the 


508  ONE   BRAVER   THING      „ 

heart  whose  chambers  were  swept  and  decked  and  garlanded 
for  a  guest  who  never  came.  Lonely,  lonely,  desolate  this  life 
lived  within  sound  of  her,  sight  of  her,  touch  of  her — dearer 
inexpressibly  than  ever  Woman  was  yet  to  man. 

He  had  said  to  her:  "  But  come  to  me,  and  I  shall  be  con- 
tent— even  happy.  Live  under  my  roof,  take  the  shelter  of 
!piy  name — I  ask  no  more." 

He  asked  more  in  the  lonely  nights  that  would  never  be 
'companioned,  in  the  silence  that  would  never  be  broken  by 
Love's  whisper  or  Love's  kiss.  He  was  not  content;  his  crav- 
ing for  her  fretted  the  flesh  from  his  bones  and  gnawed  his 
heart  like  some  voracious,  sharp-fanged  predatory  animal. 
Happy — was  he?  Happy  as  one  who  sits  beside  a  stream  of 
living  water  and  yet  must  perish  of  drought.  He  could  only 
imagine  one  greater  misery,  one  more  excruciating  torture, 
one  more  exquisite  unhappiness  than  this  happiness  she  had  con- 
ferred upon  him — and  that  was  to  be  without,  her. 

He  drew  a  deep  breath,  and  drove  back  his  fierce,  snarling 
misery,  and  kicked  it  into  its  kennel,  and  befriended  the  absurd 
little  couple.  W.  Keyse  was  tested,  proved  capable  of  manip- 
ulating the  cteering-wheel,  duly  certificated,  and  engaged. 
There  were  a  couple  of  living  rooms  over  the  coach-house  that 
was  now  a  garage.  Saxham  sent  in  some  plain  furniture,  and 
behold  an  Eden!  Pots  of  hyacinths  purchased  from  a  street 
hawker  bloomed  behind  the  tidiest  muslin  blinds  you  ever  sor, 
and  Mrs.  William  Keyse,  expectant  mother  of  a  potential 
Briton,  sat  behind  them,  and  as  she  patched  the  shirts  that 
had  been  taken  out  of  pawn — and  whether  they're  let  out  on 
hire  to  parties  wanting  such  things  or  whether  the  mice  eat 
'oles  in  'em,  who  can  say?  but  the  styte  in  which  they  come 
back  from  Them  Plyces  is  something  chronic.  She  sang,  some- 
times "  Come,  Buy  My  Coloured  "Erring,"  which  they  learned 
you  along  of  the  Tonic  Sofa  at  the  Board  School  in  Kentish 
Town,  and  sometimes  "The  Land  Where  Dreams  Come 
True." 

This  was  the  place,  this  little,  poor,  cheap  home  of  two 
rooms — one  of  them  opening  upon  nothing  by  a  loft-door — 
over  a  garage  that  had  been  a  coach-house,  at  the  end  of  the 
paved  yard  looking  towards  the  rear  of  the  tall,  drab-stuccoed 
house  whose  high  double  plate-glass  windows  were  shielded 
from  plebeian  eyes  by  softly-quilled  screens  of  silk  muslin  run- 
ning on  polished  brass  rods.  But  when  the  electric  lights 
were  switched  on,  before  the  inner  blinds  were  drawn  dowa, 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  509 

you  could  see  quite  plain  into  the  consulting-room,  a  little  be- 
low your  level,  where  the  Doctor  sat  at  his  big  writing-table 
that  was  heaped  with  notebooks  and  papers  and  had  a  telephone 
on  it,  and  all  sorts  of  mysterious  instruments  in  shining  brass 
and  silver,  as  brightly  polished  as  the  gleaming  thing  with  a 
lid,  shaped  like  a  violin-case  and  with  a  spirit-lamp  underneath 
it,  in  which  all  sorts  of  wicked-looking  knives  and  forceps  were 
boiled  when  they  were  taken  out  of  the  black  bag;  or  into 
Mrs.  Saxham's  bedroom,  that  was  on  the  floor  above,  and  was 
done  up  in  the  loveliest  style  you  ever!  "  Not  that  Mrs.  W. 
Keyse  would  exchange  her  present  quarters  for  Buckingham 
Palace,"  she  declared,  pouring  out  her  William's  tea,  "  if  in- 
vited to  do  so  by  the  Queen  herself." 

William  stopped  blowing  at  his  smoking  saucer. 

"  They  s'y  She's  dyin'."  His  face  lengthened.  He  put 
the  saucer  down.  "  They  'ave  it  in  the  evenin'  pypers." 

Mrs.  Keyse  had  a  flash  of  inspiration. 

"  I  reckon  it  don't  seem  dyin'  to  5Er." 

"  Wot  are  you  gettin'  at  ?  "  asked  the  man  in  bewilderment. 

"  I'm  gettin'  at  it  like  this,"  said  the  lighter  brain.  "  All 
'Er  long  life  she's  'ad  to  be  a  queen  first,  an*  a  wife  after. 
Now  she  lays  there  she's  no  more  than  a  wife — a  wife  wots 
goin'  to  meet  'er  'usband  agin  after  yeers  an'  yeers  o'  waitin'. 
For  'er  Crown  she  leaves  be'ind  'er  for  'er  son,  but  'er  weddin' 
ring  goes  wiv  'er  in  'er  coffin.  See  ?  " 

"  I  pipe.  Wonder  wot  'Er  an'  'Im  '11  s'y  to  one  another 
fust  thing  they  meet?" 

"  They  won't  s'y  nothink,"  said  the  visionary,  soberly  taking 
tea.  "  But  I  shouldn't  be  surprised  but  wot  they'd  stand  an' 
look  in  one  another's  fyces  wivout  s'yin'  a  word,  for  a  week 
or  so  by  the  Time  Above,  an'  the  tears  a-runnin'  down  an' 
never  stoppin'." 

"  Garn !  There  ain't  no  cryin'  in  'Eaven,"  said  W.  Keyse, 
beginning  on  the  bread-and-butter.  "  The  Bible  tells  you  so." 

"  That's  right  enough.  But  I  lay  Gawd  lets  folks  do  a  bit 
o'  blub — just  once,"  said  Emigration  Jane,  "  before  'E  wipes 
their  eyes,  becos  you  don't  begin  to  know  wot  'appiness  means 
until  you've  cried  for  joy." 

"  I  pretty  near  did  when  the  Doctor  give  me  this  chauffeur- 
ing  job,  and  so  I  tell  you  stryte,"  affirmed  her  lord.  "  D'yer 
know  I  'ad  a  shy  at  thankin'  'im  agyne,  an'  got  my  'ead  bit 
orf.  '  Shut  your  damned  mouth ! ' — that's  wot  the  Doctor 
to  me.  Well,  I  'ave  shut  it."  He  closed  his  jaws  upon 


510  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

an  Inch-thick  slice.  "  But  wot  I  s'y  to  myself  is,"  he  con- 
tinued, masticating,  "  that  makes  the  Third  Time,  an'  the 
Third  Time's  the  Charm." 

"Wot  d'yer  mean  by  the  third  time,  deer?"  asked  Mrs. 
Keyse,  putting  more  hot  water  in  the  teapot. 

"  The  First,"  said  W.  Keyse,  with  an  air  of  mystery,  "  was 
in  a  saloon-bar  full  o'  Transvaal  an'  Free  State  Dutchies  at 
'Gueldersdorp." 

"  Lor' !  You  don't  ever  mean "  began  his  wife,  and 

stopped  short.  The  scene  of  her  first  meeting  with  W.  Keyse 
flashed  back  upon  her  mental  vision.  She  saw  the  big  man 
waking  up  out  of  his  drunken  stupor  and  lurching  to  the  rescue 
of  the  little  one.  "  Was  it  'im?  "  she  panted,  as  the  teapot  ran 
over  on  the  clean  coarse  cloth.  "Was  it  Dr.  Saxham?" 

"  You  may  tyke  it  from  me  it  was."  W.  Keyse  rescued  the 
kettle,  restored  it  to  the  hob,  returned  to  his  place,  and  shook 
his  finger  at  her  warningly.  "  And  if  you  go  to  remind  me  as 

wot  'e  were  drunk  when  'e  done  wot  'e  did "  He  looked 

portentous  warnings. 

"  I  never  would.     Oh,  William !  " 

"  Mind  as  you  never  do,  that's  all.  ...  I  tried  to  thank 
'im  then,"  went  on  W.  Keyse,  "  an'  'e  wouldn't  'ave  it.  I 
tried  to  thank  'im  agyne  at  the  Hospital — an'  'e  wouldn't  'ave 
it.  I  tried  to  thank  'im  yesterday  on  'is  own  doorstep,  an'  'e 
wouldn't  'ave  it.  So  wot  I'm  a-going  to  do  is — Wait!  When 
I  was  a  little  nipper  at  Board  School  there  was  a  fairy  tyle  in 
the  Third  Standard  Class  Reader,  all  about  a  Lion  wot  'ad 
syved  the  life  of  a  Louse,  an'  'ow  the  Louse  laid  out  to  do 
somethin'  to  pay  the  Lion  back." 

"  I  remember  the  tyle,  deer,"  confirmed  Mrs.  Keyse.  "  But 
it  was  a  mouse  " — she  repressed  a  shudder — "  an'  not  the — 
thing  you  said." 

"  Mouse  or  Louse,  it  means  the  syme,"  declared  W.  Keyse 
with  burning  eyes.  "  And  the  Doctor's  goin'  to  find  it  does." 
He  held  up  his  lean  right  hand  and  swore  it.  "  So  'elp  me, 
Jiminy  Cripps ! " 

LVIII 

LYNETTE  SAXHAM  came  into  the  consulting-room  that  was  on 
the  ground-floor  of  the  house  in  Harley  Street,  behind  the 
room  where  patients  waited  their  turn.  Her  quick,  light  step 
and  the  silken  rustling  of  the  lining  of  her  gown  broke  the 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  511 

spell  that  had  bound  the  man  who  sat  motionless  in  the  arm- 
chair before  the  Sheraton  writing-table  staring  with  fixed  eyes 
and  gripping  the  arms  of  his  chair  with  unconscious  force. 

A  faint,  pleasant  odour  of  Russia  leather  and  camphor-wood 
came  from  the  dwarf  bookcases  that  dadoed  the  walls.  The 
room  was  quite  dark;  the  two  high  windows,  screened  by  clear 
muslin  blinds  running  on  gilded  rods  showed  pale  parallel- 
ograms of  cold  twilight.  The  coachhouse  and  stable  building 
at  the  end  of  the  paved  yard  showed  as  a  cube  of  blackness. 
One  window  in  the  centre  of  the  wall  was  lighted  up,  and  on 
its  white  cotton  blind  the  shadows  of  a.  man  and  woman  acted 
a  Domestic  Play. 

Perhaps  Saxham  had  been  watching  this.  The  shadow- 
man  seemed  to  sit  at  a  table  reading  a  newspaper  by  the  light 
of  the  lamp  behind  him,  the  shadow-woman  sat  nearer  the 
window,  employed  upon  some  homely  kind  of  needlework. 
Her  outline  when  she  rose  showed  that  the  woman's  great, 
mysterious  ordeal,  the  sacrament  of  keenest  anguish  by  which 
her  dearest  and  most  sacred  joy  is  won,  was  very  close  upon 
her.  She  passed  behind  the  man  as  if  to  fetch  something, 
stopped  behind  his  chair,  and  drew  her  arm  about  his  neck, 
leaning  her  cheek  down  to  his  so  that  their  two  shadows  be- 
came one. 

The  starving  waif  outside  the  window  of  the  cook-shop  knows 
no  more  excruciating  aggravation  of  his  pangs  than  to  look  at 
food,  and  yet  keeps  on  looking.  It  may  have  been  like  this 
with  Saxham,  empty  of  all  love,  and  gnawed  by  the  tooth  of  a 
sharper  hunger  than  that  which  is  merely  physical.  He  started 
out  of  his  lethargy  when  her  voice  reached  him. 

"  Owen !  .  .  .  Why,  you  are  sitting  in  the  dark !  " 

She  heard  someone  moving  among  the  shadows.  The 
electric  reading-lamp  upon  the  writing-table  diffused  a  mellow 
radiance  under  its  green  silk  shade.  Two  other  globes  sprang 
into  shining  life,  and  showed  her,  smiling,  and  shrinking  a 
little  from  the  sudden  incursion  of  light,  as  Saxham,  with  the 
quiet,  unhurried,  scrupulous  courtesy  he  always  showed  towards 
his  wife,  received  the  heavy  driving-cloak  of  sables  that  she 
dropped  from  her  shoulders,  and  laid  it  over  a  chair.  A  frosty 
breath  from  the  outer  atmosphere  clung  to  it,  but  the  silken 
lining  was  penetratingly  warm  and  instinct,  with  the  sweetness 
of  the  woman,  so  much  so  that  it  was  agony  to  the  man.  .  .  . 

She  wore  a  white  cloth  gown  of  elegantly  simple  cut,  that 
revealed  with  unostentatious  art  the  lovely  lines  of  the  slender 


512  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

shape.  A  knot  of  white  and  golden  freesias,  exhaling  a  clean, 
delicate  perfume,  was  fastened  at  her  breast;  her  wonderful 
red-brown  hair  was  shaded  by  a  broad-brimmed  brown  felt  hat 
of  Vandyke  shape,  with  creamy  drooping  plumes.  The  rare 
promise  of  her  beauty  had  fulfilled  itself  in  the  last  six  months. 
She  was  bewilderingly  lovely. 

She  drew  out  the  jewelled  pins  that  fastened  her  hat,  and 
threw  it  down,  and  took  a  favourite  seat  of  hers  beside  the  fire, 
and  looked  across  at  the  man  who  was  her  husband,  smiling 
faintly  as  she  held  her  little  foot,  delicately  shod,  high-arched 
;and  slim,  to  the  blaze  of  the  wood-fire. 

"  Do  I  interfere  with  your  work  ?  Are  any  patients  wait- 
ing?" 

"  It  is  past  my  hour  for  seeing  patients,"  said  Saxham,  with 
a  smile.  "  And  if  anyone  were  waiting,  you  are  an  older 
client,  and  have  the  prior  claim." 

"  We  will  have  tea  in  here,  then,"  she  said,  and  touched  the 
bell,  adding:  "  I  am  fond  of  this  room." 

It  was  just  now  a  place  that  was  dear  to  Saxham.  He  came 
across  to  the  hearth  and  stirred  the  fire  to  a  ruddier  blaze, 
and  stood  at  the  opposite  side  of  it,  leaning  an  arm  upon  the 
mantelshelf.  The  shining  mirror  above  it  reflected  a  square 
black  head  that  was  getting  grizzled,  and  the  profile  of  a  face 
that  was  haggard  and  worn. 

The  servant  came  with  tea,  and  drew  down  the  upper  blinds, 
shutting  out  that  mocking  shadow-play  at  which  Saxham  had 
been  staring.  As  Lynette  busied  herself  with  the  shining  silver 
and  delicate  Japanese  porcelain,  there  was  a  chance  of  studying, 
unobserved,  the  beloved  book  of  her  face — a  locked  book  to 
Saxham  since  that  day  in  the  Cemetery  at  Gueldersdorp. 

Ah,  what  a  face  it  was!  It  fascinated  and  held  him.  Such 
long,  thick,  red-brown  eyelashes,  sweeping  the  white  cheeks! 
Such  a  low,  wide,  perfectly  modelled  forehead  above  them, 
with  fine  arched  eyebrows,  darker  than  the  richly  rippling, 
parted  hair  that  was  coiled  and  twisted  and  roped  into  a  mass 
behind  the  small,  delicate  ears,  as  though  its  owner  were  im- 
patient of  its  luxuriance.  Such  a  close-folded,  mysterious 
mouth,  with  deep-cut  curves,  hiding  the  pure  white,  rather 
overlapping  teeth.  An  irregular  nose,  rather  square-ended, 
with  eager  nostrils,  a  rounded  chin,  with  a  little  cleft,  in  it. 
went  to  the  making  of  the  face  that  Saxham  and  many  others 
thought  so  beautiful. 

Only   something   was    wanting    to    it.     "Animation,"    the 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  513 

physiognomist  would  have  said.  "  Vitality,  mobility, 
health "  might  have  thought  the  ordinary  observer,  mistak- 
ing the  bluish  shadows  under  the  drooped  eyelids  and  about 
the  mouth  and  nostrils  for  the  usual  signals  of  debility. 

But  Saxham,  when  he  looked  into  the  golden-hazel  eyes,  so 
often  hidden  by  the  thick  white  eyelids,  with  their  deep  fringe 
of  red-brown  lashes,  said  to  himself  with  bitterness:  "  She  is 
quite  well.  Nothing  on  earth  is  wrong  with  her,  except  that 
she  is  not  happy.  I  can  give  her  everything  else  on  earth,  it 
seems,  but  what  she  needs  most  of  all." 

Let  Joy,  that  radiant  torch  of  the  soul,  illuminate  those  dim 
windows,  let  Happiness  sink  like  sweet  rain  into  the  dry  heart, 
and  the  whole  woman  would  spring  into  vivid  glowing  beauty, 
like  the  parched  South  African  veld  after  the  spring  rains. 
Red  tulips  would  spring  between  the  boulders ;  exquisite  glow- 
ing pelargoniums  and  golden  montbretias  would  clothe  the 
baked  earth.  The  ice-plant  would  no  longer  be  the  only  green 
thing  growing  in  the  crannies  of  the  rock.  Delicate  ferns  and 
dew-gemmed  pitcher-plants  would  quiver  there,  and  the  spikes 
of  the  rosy  and  pale  and  purple  gladioli  would  thrust,  from  the 
earth  like  spears,  and  the  sweet-scented  clematis  and  the  passion- 
vine  would  trail  and  blossom  in  rose  and  white  and  purple 
on  the  edges  of  the  kloofs  and  gorges,  every  stem  and  leaf  and 
bud  and  blossom  growing  and  rejoicing  in  the  balmy  breeze 
and  the  glorious  June  sunshine;  the  cruel,  lashing  rains,  the 
devastating  floods,  and  the  fierce  droughts  forgotten  as  though 
they  had  never  been. 

Meanwhile  the  heavy  red-brown  lashes  drooped  wearily  on 
the  white  cheeks,  and  the  long-limbed,  slight,  supple  body 
leaned  back  in  the  favourite  chair  by  the  fireside  with  a  little 
air  of  languor  that  only  added  to  her  allure.  And  Saxham, 
looking  at  her,  said  again  in  his  heart: 

"  Her  children — let  them  settle  the  money  upon  her  chil- 
dren." 

She  had  learned  to  love,  and  thrilled  at  the  touch  of  pas- 
sion. Well,  Beauvayse  was  dead,  but  Love  would  come  again. 
He  would  read  its  resurrection  in  the  radiance  of  those  eyes. 
Then,  exit  Saxham.  Such  a  marriage  as  theirs  could  be  easily 
dissolved,  but  he  would  not  take  the  easy  road.  He  had  de- 
cided. His  should  be  the  straight  and  narrow  way  of  death. 
His  death  was  a  debt  he  owed  her.  You  are  to  learn  why. 

While  he  reviewed,  for  the  thousandth  time,  this  determina- 
tion of  his,  and  told  himself  again  how  the  thing  should  be 


5H  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

done,  his  tea  had  grown  quite  cold.  She  leaned  forwards  and 
touched  his  sleeve  in  drawing  his  attention  to  the  neglected 
cup,  and  flushed  because  he  started  and  looked  at  her  in  so 
strange  a  way. 

He  never,  if  it  could  be  avoided,  touched  her.  Her  old 
shrinking  from  him  had  worn  away.  His  companionship, 
though  he  did  not  guess  it,  was  to  her  desirable — even  dear. 
The  light,  firm  tread  of  his  small  muscular  feet,  the  curt,  de- 
cided utterance,  made  welcome  music  in  her  ears.  She  would 
watch  him  without  his  knowledge  when  they  went  abroad  to- 
gether. The  esteem  in  which  his  peers  and  seniors  held  him, 
the  deference  with  which  his  opinions  were  solicited  and 
listened  to  gave  her  strange  delightful  throbs  of  pride. 

She  had  felt  the  first  stirring  of  that  pride  in  him  when  the 
man  who  had  been  the  thinking  brain  and  the  beating  heart  of 
beleaguered  Gueldersdorp  had  said,  wringing  her  husband's 
hand: 

"  //  you  have  been  of  any  use  to  me.  ...  If.  ...  You 
have  been  my  right  hand  and  my  mainstay  from  first  to  last, 
Saxham,  and  while  I  live  I  shall  remember  it." 

Brave  words — heartsome  words  for  the  hearing  of  a  woman 
who  had  loved  him.  Lynette  was  almost  sorry  that  she  did 
not. 

He  did  not  believe  that  he  had  won  any  hearts  in  Guelders- 
dorp. His  curtness,  his  roughness,  his  harshness  had  been  un- 
favourably commented  upon  many  and  many  a  time.  Yet 
when  he  left  them,  how  the  people  cheered!  What  volumes 
of  roaring  sound  from  lusty  throats  had  bidden  him  good-bye 
and  God-speed! 

"Hurrah  for  the  Doctor!  Three  cheers  for  Saxham! 
Don't  forget  us,  Doc!  Come  back  again!  God  bless  you, 
Saxham!  Bravo,  Saxham!  Saxham!  Saxhami!  Hurrah!" 

A  woman  who  had  loved  him  would  have  wept  for  joy.  A 
pity  his  wife  did  not! 

How  strangely  Owen  had  looked  at  her  just  now,  when 
she  had  brushed  his  sleeve  lightly  with  her  finger-tip!  How 
curious  it  was  that  he  never  touched  her  if  he  could  help  it! 
She  had  quite  forgotten  having  told  him  that,  while  she  liked 
to  know  him  near,  she  could  not  endure  the  thought  of  being 
taken  by  him,  caressed  by  him,  held  in  his  embrace.  .  .  .  That 
had  been  the  frank,  truthful  expression  of  her  feelings  at  the 
time.  She  did  not  recoil  so  from  his  contact  now.  She  had 
not  realized  how  deeply  her  words  had  wounded  the  man's 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  515 

great,  suffering,  patient  heart.  Spoken,  they  had  passed  from 
her  memory.  It  is  so  natural  for  a  fair,  sweet  woman  to  for- 
get. It  is  so  impossible  for  a  man  who  has  been  stabbed  to 
help  remembering,  with  the  deep,  bleeding  wound  unclosed. 

There  was  another  thing  that  Saxham  did  not  know.  Al- 
though, as  time  went  on,  the  beloved  image  of  the  Mother, 
cherished  in  the  innermost  shrine  of  her  adopted  daughter's 
heart,  suffered  no  change  in  the  clear,  firm  beauty  of  its  out- 
lines nor  deterioration  in  the  richness  of  its  tender  and  austere 
and  gracious  colouring,  and  each  new  day  supplied  some  fresher 
garland  of  old  imperishable  memories  to  grace  it  with,  that 
Shape  with  the  grey-green  jewel-eyes  and  the  gay  mouth  that, 
laughed  had  faded — faded.  She  would  not  own  it  even  to 
herself,  but  the  keen  edge  of  her  grief  for  Beauvayse  was 
blunted.  The  anniversary  of  his  death,  occurring  in  the  com- 
ing month  of  April,  was  to  be  a  solemn  retreat  of  sacred  prayer 
for  her.  But  it  was  the  Mother's  death-day  also,  when  to  the 
palm  of  martyrdom  had  been  added  the  Saint's  crown.  She 
was  going  to  spend  three  days  at  the  Kensington  Convent, 
where  the  dead  nun  had  taken  the  vows.  She  told  Saxham 
now  of  the  arrangement  she  had  made  through  Lady  Castle- 
clare,  who  was  intimate  with  the  Superior. 

"  It  will  be  a  little  like  old  times,"  she  said  to  Saxham, 
"  living  in  a  Convent  again.  And  there  are  many  Sisters  there 
who  knew  Mother,  and  loved  her " 

Her  eyes  swam  in  sudden  tears.  And  Saxham,  as  he  looked 
at  her,  felt  his  heart  contract  in  a  spasm  of  bitter  jealousy. 
All  that  love  for  the  dead,  and  not  a  crumb  for  the  living! 
He  saw  Beauvayse,  his  rival  still,  stretching  a  hand  from  the 
grave  to  keep  her  from  him.  And  he  could  have  cried  aloud: 

"  Those  tears  are  for  a  trickster  who  cheated  you  into  lov- 
ing him.  Listen,  now,  and  I,  who  have  never  lied,  even  to 
win  you,  will  show  him  to  you  as  he  really  was !  .  .  ." 

But  he  did  not  yield  to  the  temptation  to  enlighten  her.  A 
vision  rose  up  before  him  of  a  dying  man  on  a  campbed,  and 
he  heard  his  own  voice  saying: 

"  I  will  never  tell  her.  I  will  not  blacken  any  man's  reputa- 
tion to  further  my  own  interests." 

She  was  speaking,  telling  him  something.  He  came  back 
out  of  the  fierce  mental  struggle  to  listen  to  the  voice  that  was 
sweet  and  clear,  and  full  of  delicate  inflections  and  subtle  lights 
and  shadows,  and  yet  so  cold,  so  cold.  .  .  . 

"  Imagine  it !     I  met  an  old  friend  to-day  at  my  dressmaker's 


5i6  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

In  Conduit  Street.  Not  a  man — a  girl  who  was  a  pupil  at  the 
Convent  at  Gueldersdorp — or,  rather,  I  should  say  a  woman, 
for  she  is  married." 

Saxham  asked : 

"  Is  she  an  Englishwoman  or  a  Colonial  ?  " 

"  She  is  of  mingled  French  and  Dutch  blood.  She  was  a 
Miss  Du  Taine.  Her  father  was  a  member  of  the  Volksraad 
at  Pretoria.  He  controls  large  interests  on  the  Rand,  and  has 
an  estate  near  Johannesburg.  She  is  married  to  an  English 
gentleman.  He  is  very  rich,  and  has  a  title.  She  told  it.  me, 
but  I  have  forgotten  it.  She  asked  me  to  drive  home  and  lunch 
with  her.  .  .  ."  She  hesitated.  "  I  did  not  want  to  go,"  she 
said. 

"Well,  and  what  happened  then?"  Saxham  asked. 

"  I  made  some  kind  of  excuse,  and  hailed  a  hansom,  and 
drove  to  Lady  Castleclare's.  I  lunched  with  her.  She  is  al- 
ways very  kind.  She  thought  the  pearls  were  beautiful.  But 
— 'but  surely  they  cost  you  a  great  deal  of  money?  " 

She  touched  a  string  of  the  gleaming,  milky  things  that  en- 
circled her  white  throat  above  the  lace  cravat.  Saxham  said, 
smiling : 

"  They  did  not  cost  more  than  I  could  afford  to  pay.  I  am 
glad  you  liked  them.  I  told  Marie  to  put  them  on  your 
dressing-table,  where  you  would  be  likely  to  see  them  in  the 
morning." 

"You  are  too  good  to  me!"  she  said,  with  quivering  lips, 
looking  at  him.  Her  white  hand  wavered  in  the  air,  as  though 
she  meant  to  stretch  it  out  to  him. 

"  It  is  not  possible  to  be  too  good — to  you !  "  said  Saxham 
curtljr.  He  would  not  see  the  outstretched  hand.  She  drew 
it  back,  and  faltered: 

"  You  give  me  everything " 

"  You  have  given  me  what  I  most,  wanted  in  the  world,"  he 
lied  bravely. 

"  But " — she  rose  and  stood  beside  him  on  the  hearth-rug, 
tall,  and  fair,  and  slender,  and  oh!  most  seductively,  maddenly 
sweet  to  his  adoring  thought — "  but  you  take  nothing  for  your- 
self. That  bedroom  of  yours  at.  the  top  of  the  house  is  wretch- 
edly bare  and  comfortless ;  and  then,  those  absurd  pictures !  " 

She  laughed  ruefully,  recalling  the  row  of  pictorially  illus- 
trated nursery  rhymes  that  adorned  the  brown-paper  dado  of 
Saxham's  third-floor  bedroom,  the  previous  lessee  having  been 
a  family  man. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  517 

" — Little  Miss  Muflfet  and  George  Porgy,  the  Four-and- 
Twenty  Blackbirds,  and  the  Cow  that  jumped  over  the  Moon. 
How  can  you  endure  ?  " 

She  looked  at  him,  and  was  startled  by  the  set  grimness  of 
his  face  and  the  thunderous  lowering  of  the  black  smudge  of 
eyebrow.  He  said: 

"  You  went  to  my  room  to-day.     Why  ?  " 

She  crimsoned,  and  stammered: 

"  It  was  this  morning,  after  you  had  gone  out.  I — it  struck 
me  that  your  linen  ought  to  be  overlooked  and  put  to  rights 
from  time  to  time.  How  did  you  know?  " 

He  did  not  explain  that  the  perfume  of  her  hair,  of  her 
breath,  of  her  dress,  had  lingered  when  she  had  gone,  to 
tempt  and  taunt  and  torture  him.  He  said  nothing  of  the 
little  knot  of  violets  that  had  dropped  from  her  dress  upon 
the  floor,  and  he  had  found  there.  His  heart  beat  against  it 
even  then.  He  answered: 

"  You  told  me  yourself.  And,  as  for  the  linen,  let  it  be. 
The  housekeeper  knows  that  she  is  expected  to  attend  to  it." 

"  She  isn't  your  wife !  " 

Her  golden  eyes  flashed  at  him  rebelliously.  He  was  pro- 
voking her,  in  his  innocence  of  all  intention,  as  a  subtle  wooer 
might  have  planned  to  do. 

"  I  am  extremely  glad  that  she  is  not."  His  mouth  relaxed 
in  a  smile,  and  his  thunderous  brows  smoothed  themselves. 
"  And  now,  don't  you  think  you  ought  to  go  and  dress?  You 
are  dining  with  Lady  Hannah  and  Major  Wrynche  at  The 
Carlton  at  seven,  and  going  on  to  a  theatre."  He  held  his 
watch  out.  "  Six-thirty  now,"  he  said,  and  restored  the 
chronometer  to  his  waistcoat  pocket. 

"  Very  well."  She  moved  a  step  or  two  in  the  direction  of 
the  door,  and  turned  her  head  as  gracefully  as  a  young  deer, 
and  looked  back  at  him.  "But  you  are  coming,  too?"  she 
said,  and  her  eyes  were  very  soft. 

He  shook  his  head. 

"  It  is  impossible.  I  have  several  urgent  cases  to  visit,  and 
there  is  an  article  for  the  Scientific  Review"  He  moved  his 
hand  slightly  in  the  direction  of  some  sheets  of  manuscript  that 
lay  upon  the  blotting-paper.  "  I  have  a  heavy  night's  work 
before  me  with  that  alone.  My  excuses  have  already  been 
telephoned  to  Lady  Hannah." 

"Owen!" 

She  spoke  his  name  in  a  whisper. 


5i8  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

-^"Owen!" 


"Couldn't  I?  —  would  you  care  to  have  me?  —  may  I  stay 
and  dine  at  home  with  you  ?  " 

"And  disappoint  your  friends!  .  .  .  Most  certainly  not. 
Unless,  indeed  "  —  his  tone  warmed  to  interest  —  "  unless  you 
(are  not  feeling  well." 

"  I  am  perfectly  well,  thanks,"  she  said  coldly. 

"  Then  go  to  your  dinner  and  your  play,  child,"  said  Sax- 
ham,  with  the  smile  that  changed  and  softened  his  harsh 
features  almost  into  beauty.  "  I  will  drive  with  you  to  The 
Carlton,  and  fetch  you  from  the  play.  Which  of  the  theatres 
have  you  decided  to  patronize?" 

"  Lady  Hannah  and  the  Major  left  the  choice  to  me/'  she 
said,  with  a  little  touch  of  girlish  importance,  "  so  I  telephoned 
to  Nickalls  in  Bond  Street  for  a  box  at  The  Leicester.  He 
had  not  got  one;  he  sent  me  three  stalls  for  '  The  Chiffon  Girl  ' 
at  The  Variety  instead.  It  is  a  revival.  I  don't  quite  know 
what  that  means,"  she  added,  rather  puzzled  by  Saxham's  si- 
lence and  the  grimness  of  his  face.  "  You  do  not  mind  at  all? 
You  do  not  think  it  is  the  kind  of  play  the  Mother  would  not 
have  liked  me  to  see?" 

"  No,"  said  Saxham  curtly,  and  with  averted  eyes. 

She  bent  her  head  to  him  as  he  opened  the  door,  and  went 
away  to  her  own  rooms  on  the  floor  above,  the  drawing-room 
that  was  upholstered  and  hung  with  delicate  green-and-white, 
rose-garlanded  Pompadour  brocade,  and  graceful  water-colours 
from  famous  hands,  and  furnished  with  every  luxury  and 
elegance  that  the  heart  of  woman  could  desire;  the  charming 
boudoir,  pink  as  a  sea-shell,  and  full  of  new  books  and  old 
china;  the  bedroom,  with  the  blue-and-white  decorations, 
where  an  ivory  crucifix  that  had  always  stood  upon  the 
Mother's  writing-table  hung  above  the  dainty  bed. 

"  I  think  he  is  a  little  hard  on  me  at  times,"  she  said,  as 
she  passed  through  the  warm,  firelit,  perfumed  rooms  that  were 
fragrant  with  the  narcissi  and  violets  and  lilies  that  were  sent 
in  by  his  orders,  and  strewn  with  the  costly,  pretty  trifles  that 
she,  who  had  been  used  to  the  barrack-like  bareness  of  the 
Convent,  delighted  in  like  a  child,  and  the  gleaming  mirrors 
gave  her  back  her  loveliness.  "  He  treats  me  as  if  I  were  a 
stranger.  And,  after  all,  I  am  his  wife.  .  .  ." 

Saxham's  patients  found  him  even  curter  and  more  brusque 
in  manner  than  usual  that  evening,  and  the  article  for  the 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  519 

Scientific  Review  made  little  way.  He  threw  down  his  pen  at 
last,  and  leaned  his  head  upon  his  hands  and  wondered,  star- 
ing at  the  unfinished  page  of  manuscript  with  eyes  that  saw  no 
meaning  in  the  sentences,  whether  any  man  born  of  woman 
had  even  been  so  great  a  fool  as  the  man  who  had  written 
them. 

To  have  made  that  promise  of  secrecy  to  the  dead  traitor 
was  an  act  of  sheer,  quixotic  folly.  To  have  kept  it  was 
madness,  nothing  less.  And  yet  Saxham  knew  that  he  would 
keep  it  always.  That  if  she  ever  learned  the  truth,  it  would 
be  hinted  by  the  chance  remark  of  some  stranger,  gathered 
from  a  paragraph  in  some  newspaper.  There  was  a  small- 
print  line  at  the  bottom  of  the  quarter-column  devoted  by  the 
compilers  of  Whittinger's  "  Peerage "  to  the  Marquisate  of 
Foltlebarre,  which  might  have  enlightened  her.  He  turned  to 
it  now,  and  read: 

"  Ctss.  of  Beauvayse,  Esther,  dau:  of  Samuel  Levah,  Esq.,  of 
Finsbury,  E.  C,  mar:  May,  1899,  the  late  John  Edward  Basil 
Tobart,  Lieut.  Grey  Hussars,  nth  Earl  of  Beauvayse.  Killed 
in  action  during  the  defence  of  Gueldersdorp,  Feb.,  1900,  while 
atta:  as  Junior  aide  to  the  Staff  of  Colonel  Commanding  H. 
M.  Forces,  leaving  issue  one  dau:  The  Lady  Alyse  Rosabel 
Tobart,  aged  eighteen  months." 

At  the  clubs,  Service  and  Civil,  Saxham  had  heard  the  im- 
promptu marriage  of  the  late  John  Basil  Edward  Tobart 
freely  discussed.  The  story  of  his  subsequent  entanglement 
"  with  some  girl  or  other  at  Gueldersdorp  "  had  been  mooted 
in  his  presence  a  dozen  times  by  Society  chatterers,  whose  en- 
joyment of  the  scandal  would  have  been  pleasantly  stimulated 
by  the  knowledge  that  "Saxham,  M.D.,  F.R.C.S.,  late  At- 
tached Medical  Staff,"  was  married  to  the  girl.  But  they  did 
not  know,  and  she  .  .  . 

What  use — what  use  in  her  knowing?  Of  what  avail  could 
be  the  melting  of  the  ice  about  her  heart,  the  loosening  of  the 
fetters  of  her  tongue,  the  quickening  of  her  nature,  the  miracle 
vouchsafed?  Of  none,  now,  for  a  reason.  Saxham  told  him- 
self, in  those  hours  when  he  propped  his  burning  forehead  on 
his  hands  and  looked  into  the  starless  night  of  his  desolate  soul, 
that  he  had  ceased  even  to  desire  that  she  should  come  to  love 
him.  Far  better  that  she  should  never  know. 

It  was  growing  late,  and  he  had  promised  to  fetch  her  from 


520  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

the  theatre.  The  silver  clock  upon  the  mantelshelf  chimed  ten. 
He  had  stretched  his  hand  to  the  telephone  to  ring  up  his 
motor-brougham  from  the  garage,  when  he  heard  the  click  of 
her  latchkey  in  the  outer  door  and  the  silken  whisper  of  her 
garments  passing  quickly  through  the  hallway.  Then  came  a 
knock  at  the  consulting-room  door — sharp,  quick,  imperious, 
oddly  unlike  Lynette's  soft  tap.  ...  At  the  summons  Saxham 
made  two  strides  across  the  carpet  and  opened  to  her,  a  ques- 
tion on  his  lips. 

"Why  have  you  come  back  so  early?  Has  anything 
happened  ?  " 

Even  as  he  asked,  her  look  told  why.     She  knew. 

She  knew.  .  .  .  Her  face  was  rigid,  a  pure  white  mask  of 
ivory;  there  was  not  a  trace  of  colour  even  in  the  set  lips. 
Her  eyes  burned  upon  him,  twin  flames  of  dark  amber,  steady 
under  levelled  brows.  She  was  wrapped  in  a  long  ermine- 
caped  and  bordered  black  brocade  mantle,  that  gleamed  with 
jet  passementerie;  a  scarf  of  white  lace  covered  her  head.  It 
hid  the  red-brown  hair  with  the  Clytie  ripple  in  it,  and  the 
great  silken  coils,  transfixed  by  a  sapphire  and  diamond  dagger 
that  were  massed  at  the  nape  of  the  slender  neck.  Seen  so,  she 
was  nunlike  in  her  chaste  severity,  but  for  those  stern,  resent- 
ful eyes. 

"  I  have  come  to  tell  you  that  I  am  no  longer  in  ignorance. 
I  have  found  out  what  you  have  hidden  from  me  so  long — 
what  the  Wrynches  knew  and  would  not  tell  me;  what  the 
world  has  known  while  I  sat  in  the  dark.  .  .  ." 

A  spasm  wrung  her  mouth.  Saxham  rolled  a  chair  towards 
her.  He  said  guardedly,  avoiding  her  eyes: 

"  Until  you  acquaint  me  in  detail  with  what  you  have  heard, 
I  cannot  explain  or  defend  myself.  Will  you  not  sit  down? 
You  are  looking  pale  and  overwrought." 

She  laid  one  slight  gloved  hand  upon  the  chair-back,  and 
leaned  upon  it. 

"  I  had  rather  stand,  if  you  have  no  objection,  whilst  I  tell 
you  what  I  have  learned  to-night.  I  dined  alone  with  Lady 
Hannah  at  the  Carlton ;  we  went  together  to  the  theatre — 
Major  Wrynche  had  had  a  summons  to  attend  at  Marlborough 
House." 

She  untied  the  knot  of  lace  beneath  her  chin,  and  stripped 
away  the  long  gloves  with  nervous  haste  and  impatience,  and 
tossed  them  with  the  scarf  upon  the  chair  beside  her,  and  went 
on: 


ONE   BRAVER    THING  521 

"  I  had  heard  much  of  '  The  Chiffon  Girl.'  I  wanted  to 
see  it.  When  the  First  Act  began  I  wondered  very  much 
why  they  called  it  a  Musical  Comedy,  when  the  noise  the 
orchestra  made  could  hardly  be  called  music,  and  there  was 
no  comedy — only  slang  expressions  and  stupid  jokes.  But  the 
actress  who  sang  and  danced  in  the  principal  part  .  .  .  Miss 
Lavigne  .  .  ."  She  had  loosened  her  mantle;  now  she  let  it 
drop  upon  the  Eastern  carpet,  emerging  from  its  blackness  as  a 
slender,  supple,  upright  shape  in  clinging,  creamy-white  drap- 
eries ;  her  exquisite  arms  bare  to  the  shoulders,  and  clasped  mid- 
way by  heavy,  twisted  bracelets  of  barbaric  gold,  her  nymph- 
like  bosom  swelling  from  the  folded  draperies  of  the  low-cut 
bodice  like  a  twin-budded  narcissus  flowering  from  the  pale 
calyx,  her  sweet  throat  clasped  about  with  Saxham's  gift  of 
pearls. 

"  She  could  not  sing,  though  the  people  applauded  and  en- 
cored her  " — there  was  a  gleam  of  disdain  in  the  golden  eyes — 
"  but  she  was  very  pretty  .  .  .  she  danced  wTith  wonderful 
grace  and  lightness  ...  it  was  like  a  swallow  dipping  and 
darting  over  the  shallows  of  the  river-shore,  like  a  branch  of 
red  pomegranate-blossoms  swayed  and  swung  by  a  Spring 
breeze.  ...  I  admired  her,  and  yet  I  was  sorry  for  her.  .  .  . 
To  have  to  pose  and  bound  and  whirl  before  all  those  rows 
and  rows  of  staring  faces  night  after  night  .  .  ." 

Saxham  did  not  smile.  But  a  muscle  twitched  in  his  cheek 
as  he  said : 

"  She  would  hardly  thank  you  for  pitying  her." 

"  She  would  be  right  to  resent  my  pity,"  Lynette  burst  out 
with  sudden  vehemence.  "  She  has  been  injured,  and  I  was 
the  cause.  Oh !  how  could  you  be  so  cruel  as  to  let  me  go  on 
loving  him?  Was  it  kind?  Was  it  fair  to  yourself  and  me?  " 

Saxham's  square,  pale  face  was  perfectly  expressionless.  He 
waited  in  silence  to  hear  the  rest. 

"  You  know  of  whom  I  speak  .  .  ."  said  Lynette.  "  He 
was  gay  and  beautiful  and  winning — not  chivalrous,  as  I 
believed  him ;  not  honest,  or  sincere,  or  true.  Months  before 
we  met  at  Gueldersdorp  he  was  the  husband  of  this  actress — 
the  woman  I  saw  upon  the  stage  to-night.  And  you  knew 
all  this,  and  never  told  me.  You  knew  that  his  memory  was 
sacred  in  my  heart.  A  man  who  said  he  loved  me  once  tried 
to  blacken  it.  I  will  not  tell  you  who  he  was.  But  I  re- 
member that  I  laughed  in  his  face  as  I  drove  him  from  me. 
'  You  thought  to  make  me  hate  him,'  I  said.  '  You  have  failed 


522  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

miserably.  If  it  were  possible  to  love  him  better,  if  I  could 
honour  his  memory  more  than  I  do  now,  I  would,  because  of 
the  evil  you  have  spoken  of  my  dead.' " 

She  heard  Saxham  draw  breath  heavily.  She  went  on  with 
increased  passion,  and  gathering  resentment: 

"  All  my  life  long  I  might  have  gone  on  in  my  blindness, 
honouring  the  dishonourable,  cherishing  the  base,  but  for  the 
idle  gossip  of  two  strangers  in  the  theatre  to-night — a  man  and 
a  woman  in  the  stalls  behind  us.  They  talked  all  the  louder 
when  the  lights  went  down.  They  wondered  '  why  the 
Lavigne  did  not  star  on  the  programme  as  a  Peeress,'  but,  of 
course,  they  said,  '  the  Foltlebarres  would  never  stand  that. 
They  were  nearly  wild  when  that  handsome  scamp  of  theirs 
married  her — poor  Beauty  Beauvayse,  of  the  Grey  Hussars. 
He  and  she  had  kept  house  together;  there  was  a  kiddie  com- 
ing. .  .  .  The  little  woman  played  her  cards  uncommonly 
well.  .  .  .  The  marriage  was  pulled  off  on  the  quiet  at  a 
Registrar's  a  week  or  so  before  he  got  his  appointment  on  the 
Staff.  Straight  of  the  fellow,  but  afterwards,  at  Guelders- 
dorp,  didn't  he  kick  over  the  matrimonial  pole?  Somebody 
had  seen  his  engagement  to  a  Miss  Something-or-other  an- 
nounced in  a  Siege  newspaper,  published  the  very  day  he  got 
killed.  .  .  .  Poor  beggar!  Rough  on  him,  and  rough  on  the 
Foltlebarres,  and  a  facer  for  Lessie  .  .  .  and  what  price  the 
girl  ? '  And  I  was  the  girl.  ...  It  was  of  me  they  were 
talking.  .  .  ." 

Her  lips  writhed  back  from  her  white  teeth.  She  winced 
and  shuddered.  "  Oh !  can't  you  see  me  sitting  and  listening, 
and  every  word  vitriol,  burning  to  the  bone  ?  " 

"  Why  did  you  remain,"  said  Saxham,  wrung  by  pity,  "  to 
be  tortured  by  such  prurient  prattlers?  Why  did  you  not  get 
up  and  leave  the  place  ?  " 

"  I  could  not  move,"  she  said.  ..."  I  could  only  sit  and 
listen.  Then  the  First  Act  ended,  and  the  lights  went,  up,  and 
Lady  Hannah  touched  my  arm.  I  knew  when  our  eyes  met 
that  she  had  heard  as  I  had.  She  got  up,  saying,  '  I  think  we 
have  had  enough  of  this,'  and  then  we  came  away." 

She  caught  her  breath  and  bit.  her  underlip,  and  he  saw  her 
eyes  grow  misty. 

"  She  sent  a  Commissionaire  to  call  a  hansom.  .  .  .  She 
took  my  hand  as  we  stood  waiting  in  the  empty  vestibule. 
She  said :  '  Those  chattering  pies  behind  us  have  saved  me 
some  bad  half-hours.  Your  husband,  for  some  reason  of  his 


ONE   BRAVER    THING  523 

own,  has  never  told  you.  And  it  has  more  than  once  occurred 
to  me  that  if  I  were  the  true  friend  I  want  to  be  to  both  of 
you,  I'd  have  proved  it  before  now  by  telling  you  myself.  But 
I've  learned  to  be  doubtful  of  my  own  inspirations.  .  .  .'  I 
asked  her  then  if  all  they  had  said  was  true?  She  shrugged 
her  shoulders  and  nodded :  '  Pour  tout  dire,  they  let  Beau 
down  rather  gently.  .  .  .  But  if  he  never  could  tell  the  truth 
to  a  woman,  he  never  went  back  on  a  man ;  and,  after  all,  these 
things  run  in  the  blood.  Passons  I'eponge  la-dessus.  Forget 
him,  and  thank  your  good  Angel  you're  married  to  an  honour- 
able man!" 

Saxham's  eyes  were  on  the  carpet.  He  did  not  raise  them 
or  move  a  muscle  of  his  face. 

"  She  told  me  to  forget  him.  It  is  easier  to  forgive  him ; 
there  are  deceits  that  smirch  the  soul  of  the  deceived  no  less 
than  the  deceiver.  He  lied  to  the  Mother — that  I  cannot, 
pardon!  Perhaps  some  day — but  I  do  not  know.  Lady 
Hannah  called  you  honourable.  ...  I  needed  no  one  to  tell 
me  what  you  are  and  have  always  been.  You  hide  the  things 
that  other  men  boast  of.  ...  You  are  loyal  even  to  those  you 
scorn.  You  kept  his  secret.  I  have  reproached  you  to-night 
for  keeping  it,  even  while  I  honoured  you  in  my  heart" 

"  Do  not  honour  me ! "  said  Saxham  harshly.  "  In  behav- 
ing with  common  decency,  can  a  man  tell  tales  on  another  who 
is  dead?  To  commit  murder  would  be  a  crime  less  cowardly. 
I  do  myself  mere  justice  when  I  say  that  I  am  incapable  of  an 
act  so  vile.  Nor  would  I  blacken  a  living  man  to  make  myself 
show  whiter  in  any  man's — or  woman's  eyes." 

She  was  no  longer  pale.  A  lovely  colour  flushed  her,  and 
her  eyes  were  wistful  and  very  kind.  Her  draperies  rustled 
as  she  moved  towards  him.  "  Owen  .  .  ."  she  said,  and  her 
white  hands  were  held  out  to  him,  and  her  sweet  mouth  quiv- 
ered, and  her  voice  was  a  sigh,  "  I  am  alive  at  last  to  your 
infinite  generosity.  I  beg  you  to  forgive  me  for  being  blind 
before." 

"  Generosity,"  said  Saxham,  "  does  not  enter  into  the  ques- 
tion. My  silence  has  no  merits  whatever.  What  good  could 
I  have  gained  by  telling  you?"  He  lifted  his  eyes,  and  met 
hers  full,  dropping  the  words  coldly  one  by  one.  "  That  ad- 
vantage one  has  ceased  to  desire  can  hardly  be  called  gain,  in 
any  sense  of  the  word.  And — I  have  left  off  crying  for  the 
moon.  I  have  ceased  to  wish  for  your  love — even  were  you 
willing  to  give  it  me." 


524  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

She  looked  at  him  with  piteous,  incredulous  wistfulness;  he 
had  told  the  lie  with  hardihood.  His  mask  of  a  face  revealed 
nothing,  but  he  could  not  disguise  the  rage  of  hunger  for  her 
that  ravened  in  his  famished  eyes.  They  were  upon  her  lips, 
her  throat,  the  lovely  curves  of  her  young  bosom  even  as  he 
spoke;  she  felt  them  as  the  kisses  of  a  fierce,  possessive  mouth, 
and  glowed  with  sudden  shame,  and  something  more.  He  saw 
her  beauty  change  from  the  pale  rose  to  the  fire-hearted  crimson, 
tore  away  his  eyes,  and  mastered  himself.  He  stepped  back, 
and  the  outstretched,  quivering  hands  dropped  nervelessly  at 
her  sides. 

"  You  have  asked  me  to  pardon  you,"  he  said,  "  for  some 
fancied  lack  of  perception.  It.  is  I  who  owe  an  apology  to 
you.  Try  and  forgive  me  for  having  married  you.  ...  I 
should  have  known  from  the  first  that  no  good  or  happiness 
could  ever  come  of  a  contract  like  ours." 

"Have  I  ever  said  I  was  unhappy?"  she  demanded.  Her 
breath  came  quick  and  short. 

"  Your  face  has  said  so  very  often,"  returned  Saxham,  look- 
ing at  it,  "  though  you  were  too  considerate  to  tell  me  so  in 
words.  But  I  ask  you  on  this  night  that  sees  you  freed  from 
an  illusion,  to  have  courage  and  not  yield  to  depression.  Your 
fetters  may  be  broken  sooner  than  you  think." 

"Owen!  .  .  ." 

She  was  paler  than  before,  if  that  could  be  possible.  She 
swayed  a  little,  and  caught  at  the  back  of  a  chair  that  was  near, 
and  there  was  terror  in  her  darkened,  dilated  eyes.  .  .  . 

"Do  you  say  this  to  prepare  me?  Have  you  any  illness? 
Do  you  mean  that  you  are  going  to  die?" 

"  I  meant  nothing  .  .  ."  answered  Saxham,  "  except  that 
men  are  mortal,  sometimes  fortunately  for  the  women  who  are 
bound  to  them.  Go  to  bed,  my  child;  to  sleep  will  do  you 
good." 

"  Good-night,"  she  said,  and  dropped  her  head,  and  went 
away.  He  opened  the  door  for  her,  and  locked  it  after  her, 
and  went  back  to  the  writing-table,  and  sat  in  his  chair.  He 
gripped  the  arms  of  it  in  anguish,  and  the  sweat  of  agony  stood 
on  the  broad  forehead  where  a  woman  who  had  loved  him 
would  have  laid  her  lips. 

He  had  repelled  her,  slighted  her,  wounded  her.  ...  He 
knew  what  it  had  cost  him  not  to  take  those  offered  hands. 
.  .  .  He  was  tortured  and  wrung  in  body  and  in  soul  as  he 
took  a  key  that  hung  upon  his  chain  and  unlocked  a  deep 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  525 

idrawer,  and  took  a  flask  from  it  that  gurgled  as  if  some 
mocking  sprite  had  laughed  aloud  when  he  shook  it.  close  to 
his  ear.  He  whom  she  had  praised  as  honourable  was  a  traitor 
no  less  than  the  dead  man.  He  had  said  to  her,  months  ago 
in  the  Cemetery  at  Gueldersdorp : 

"  I  may  die,  but  I  will  never  fail  you." 

He  had  not  died,  and  he  had  failed  her.  The  Dop  Doctor 
of  Gueldersdorp  was  drinking  hard  again. 


LIX 

BEFORE  you  turn  away  in  loathing  of  the  man  whose  experi- 
ence of  Life's  game  of  football  had  been  chiefly  gained  from 
the  ball's  point  of  view,  hear  how  it  happened  that  the  work 
of  all  those  months  of  stern  self-repression  and  strenuous  denial 
had  been  rendered  useless. 

In  the  previous  July,  when  General  Huller  was  visiting 
Lord  Williams,  of  Afghanistan,  at  Pretoria,  Owen  Saxham, 
M.D.,  F.R.C.S.,  had  been  married  to  Lynet.te  Bridget-Mary 
Mildare  at  the  Registrar's  Office,  Gueldersdorp,  and  at  the 
Catholic  Church.  One  hour  after  the  ceremony  the  happy 
pair  left  by  the  mail  for  Cape  Town. 

Gueldersdorp  turned  out  to  do  them  honour.  We  have 
heard  the  people  cheer.  Three  days  and  three  nights  of  the 
Express,  delayed  in  places  by  the  wrecking  of  the  line,  and 
then  the  Alpine  mountain-ranges  sank  and  dwindled  with  the 
mercury  in  the  thermometer.  The  little  white  towns  succeeded 
each  other  like  pearls  on  a  green  string.  Humpy  blue  hills 
gave  way  to  the  flats,  and  then  in  the  shadow  of  Table  Moun- 
tain— Babel's  confusion  of  tongues — and  the  stalwart  flower 
of  many  nations,  arrayed  and  armed  for  battle,  and  the  glory, 
and  pomp,  and  power  of  War. 

The  grey  and  white  transport  disgorged  them,  ants  of  sober, 
neutral  colours,  marching  in  columns  to  attack  other  ants. 
They  grew  upon  the  vision  and  filled  it,  and  the  sound  of  their 
feet  was  louder  than  the  beating  of  the  surf  on  Sea  Point,  and 
although  martial  music  beat  and  blew  them  on — a  brazen 
whirlwind  dominating  the  mind,  blaring  at  the  ears — the 
tramping  of  men's  feet  and  the  hoof  of  horses,  and  the  rolling 
of  iron-shod  wheels  triumphed  in  the  long-run. 

Saxham  engaged  rooms  at  the  Trafalgar  Hotel,  a  handsome 
caravanserai  standing  in  its  own  gardens  at  the  top  of  Imperial 


526  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

Avenue,  for  himself  and  his  wife,  and  the  savage  irony  that 
can  be  conveyed  in  the  term  struck  him,  not  for  the  first  time 
since  he  had  laid  gold  and  silver  on  the  open  book,  and  en- 
dowed a  woman  with  the  gift  of  himself  and  all  his  worldly 
goods. 

It  was  early  in  the  forenoon.  They  were  to  sail  next  day. 
The  big  building  was  crammed,  not  only  with  officers  under 
orders  for  the  Front,  and  their  wives,  who  had  come  to  see 
them  start,  but  society  had  descended  like  a  flock  of  chattering 
gaudily-plumaged  paroquets  upon  the  spot  where  new  and  ex- 
citing sensations  were  to  be  had.  For  the  trampling  feet  and 
the  rolling  wheels  that  ceaselessly  went  North  imparted  one 
set  of  thrills,  and  the  long  trains  of  wounded  and  dying  that 
met  and  passed  them,  coming  down  as  they  went  up,  gave 
another  kind.  Amongst  the  poor  dears  in  the  trucks,  and 
waggons,  and  Ambulance-carriages  you  might  eventually  find 
a  man  you  knew.  .  .  .  The  sporting  odds  were  given  and 
taken  on  these  exciting  chances;  and  the  fluttering  and  scream- 
ing paroquets  that  crowded  the  Railway  Stations,  in  spite  of 
their  gay  feathers,  bore  no  little  resemblance  to  carrion-feeding 
birds  of  prey. 

Saxham,  Recently  Attached  Medical  Staff,  Gueldersdorp, 
suffered  from  the  notoriety  inseparable  from  the  name  of  a 
man  who  has  been  thrice  mentioned  in  Despatches,  and  has 
been  publicly  thanked  by  the  representatives  of  an  Imperial 
Government.  The  Interviewer  yapped  at  his  heels  whitherso- 
ever he  went,  and  the  Correspondent  strove  to  lure  him  into 
confidences,  and  Society  fluttered  at  him  with  shrill  squawkings, 
and  wanted  to  know,  don't  you  know?  It  must  have  been 
"  devey  "  and  "  twee  "  to  have  gone  through  all  those  experi- 
ences. It  was  the  year  when  "  devey,"  and  "  twee,"  and 
similar  abbreviations  first  became  fashionable. 

There  were  pleasanter  episodes  than  these,  when  soldierly, 
bronzed  warriors  and  simple,  unaffected  men  of  great  affairs 
expressed  to  Saxham  in  few  words  their  belief  that  he  had  done 
his  duty.  The  approval  of  these  warmed  him  and  helped  to 
raise  him  higher.  It  was  a  little  creature,  a  human  insect  no 
bigger  than  a  bar-tender,  that  brought  about  the  mischief. 

There  was  an  American  bar  on  the  ground-floor  of  the 
Trafalgar.  Saxham  stood  upon  the  threshold  of  the  place, 
replying  to  the  questions  of  a  group  of  Colonial  officers,  New 
South  Wales  Mounted  Engineers  and  Canadian  Rangers,  when 
somebody  suggested  Drinks,  and  led  the  way  in.  Invited  to 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  527 

make  his  choice  from  a  long  list  of  alcoholic  mixtures,  begin- 
ning with  Whisky  Straight,  and  ending  with  Bosom  Caresser 
and  gin-sour,  Saxham  said  that  he  would  take  a  glass  of  ice- 
water. 

"  Well,  boss,  since  you're  on  the  Temperance  Walk,"  said 
the  Australian,  his  would-be  host,  a  little  huffy,  "  you'll  please 
yourself,  I  suppose?"  He  collected  the  preferences  of  his 
other  guests,  and  gave  the  orders  to  the  man  behind  the 
bar. 

The  barman  had  the  misfortune  to  be  a  joker  of  the  practi- 
cal kind.  Seeing  Saxham  held  in  conversation  by  one  of  the 
other  men,  he  winked  portentously  at  the  New  South  Waler, 
and  whispered  in  his  ear. 

The  Australian  understood.  A  reason  for  Saxham's 
abstinence  had  been  given  him.  The  new-made  bridegroom 
as  a  rule  shuns  Alcohol.  And  in  proportion  to  his  desire  to 
avoid  grows  the  determination  of  other  men  to  compel  him 
to  drink.  The  bridegroom  is  fair  game  all  the  world  over  for 
the  Rabelaisian  jest  and  the  clown's  horseplay. 

The  bar-tender,  hoisting  his  eyebrows  to  his  scollops  of 
gummed  hair,  winked  at  the  New  South  Waler  with  infinite 
meaning,  and  pointed  to  a  cut-glass  carafe  that  stood  on  the 
shining  nickel-plated  counter.  It  appeared  to  contain  pure 
sparkling  water,  but  the  liquor  it  held  was  knock-out  whisky, 
a  tintless  drink  of  exceeding  potency,  above  proof.  The 
Australian  shook  his  head.  But  he  laughed  under  his  neat 
moustache  as  he  turned  away,  and  the  bar-tender  concluded  to 
carry  his  joke  through.  He  dealt  out  the  drinks  to  their 
respective  owners,  and  with  a  dexterous  sweep  of  a  shirt-sleeved 
arm  brought  the  innocent-seeming  carafe  and  a  gleaming, 
polished  tumbler  immediately  before  the  square-faced  hulking 
doctor  with  the  queer  blue  eyes,  whose  pretty  bride  of  three 
days  was  waiting  for  him  in  their  room  upon  the  third  floor  of 
the  humming,  over-crowded  caravanserai.  Saxham,  absorbed 
by  the  thought  of  her,  poured  out  a  tumblerful  of  the  clear, 
sparkling  stuff,  and  had  half  emptied  it  before  he  realized  the 
trick.  His  eyes  grew  red  with  injected  blood,  and  his  hair 
bristled  on  his  head.  He  struck  out  once  across  the  narrow 
counter.  The  long  wall-mirror  behind  the  bar-tender  cracked 
and  starred  with  the  crashing  impact  of  the  joker's  skull,  and 
the  man  fell  senseless,  bleeding  from  the  mouth  and 
nostrils. 

Another  attendant  came  running  at  the  crash,  and  the  ex- 


528  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

clamations  of  those  who  had  seen  the  swift  retaliation  wreaked. 
Saxham  pointed  to  the  two  banknotes  lying  on  the  counter, 
wheeled  abruptly,  and  went  out  of  the  bar. 

His  brain  was  on  fire.  His  blood  ran  riot  in  his  burning 
veins,  and  The  Vice  he  had  deemed  dead  stirred  in  the  depths 
of  his  being,  lifted  its  slender  head,  and  hissed,  quivered  a 
forked  tongue,  and  struck  with  poisoned  fangs.  He  went  out 
into  the  purple  night  that  wedded  lovers  would  have  found  so 
perfect.  The  great  white  stars  winked  down  at  him  jeeringly, 
and  a  little  mocking  breeze  sniggered  among  the  mimosas  and 
palms  of  the  hotel  gardens.  He  passed  out  of  them  into  the 
many-tongued  Babel  of  the  streets,  packed  with  humanity, 
throbbing  with  virile  life,  and  tramped  the  magnificent  avenues 
and  wide  electric-lighted  streets  of  Cape  Town  with  the  thou- 
sands who  had  no  beds  to  go  to,  and  the  hundreds  who  had,  but 
preferred  not  to  occupy  them.  To  his  narrow  couch  in  the 
dressing-room  adjoining  Lynette's  bedroom  her  husband  dared 
not  go. 

So  he  wore  the  night  out  doggedly,  wrestling  with  the  demon 
that  boils  the  blood  of  strong  fierce  men  to  forgetfulness  of 
compacts  and  breach  of  oaths.  Daybreak  touched  him  with  a 
shivering  finger,  a  hulking  figure  dozing  on  one  of  the  white- 
painted  municipal  iron  seats  near  the  Athletic  Ground  on 
Greenpoint  Common.  The  last  lingering  star  throbbed  itself 
out,  a  white  moth  dying  in  the  marvellous  rose  and  orange  fires 
of  dawn,  and  the  overwhelming,  brooding  bulk  of  Table 
Mountain  gleamed,  an  emerald  and  sapphire  splendour  against 
the  rising  sun,  and  the  two  lesser  peaks  that  are  the  mountain's 
bodyguard  shone  glowing  in  golden  mail  as  Saxham  got  to  his 
feet,  and  shook  some  order  into  the  disorder  of  his  dress,  and 
faced  hotelwards. 

Despair  was  in  the  heart  of  the  Dop  Doctor,  and  for  him 
the  wonder  of  the  dawn,  the  marvel  of  the  sunrise  meant  no 
more  than  if  he  had  been  born  blind.  A  menial's  trick  had 
wrought  him  confusion;  his  will,  in  the  saving  strength  of 
which  he  had  trusted,  was  a  leaf  in  the  wind  of  his  desire. 
Even  now  his  throat  and  tongue  were  parched,  his  being 
thirsted  for  the  liquor  he  had  abjured. 

What  was  to  do  ?  What  was  to  happen  in  the  future  ?  He 
asked  himself  in  vain.  As  Mouille  Point  shut  its  fixed  red 
eye  in  apparent  derision,  and  the  Greenpoint  Light  winked  a 
thirteen-mile  wink  and  went  out,  unlike  the  Hope  that  had. 
burned  in  Saxham,  and  would  be  rekindled  never  more. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  529 


LX 

PITY  the  man  now  as  he  sat  brooding  alone  in  the  consulting- 
room,  consumed  by  the  thirst  he  shuddered  at,  once  more  an 
unwilling  slave  to  the  habit  he  abhorred. 

He  unscrewed  the  large  flask  and  drank,  and  his  lips  curled 
back  with  loathing  of  the  whisky,  and  his  gorge  rose  at  it  as  it 
went  down.  Then  he  put  the  flask  back  and  locked  the  drawer, 
and  laid  his  head  down  upon  his  folded  arms  in  silence.  No 
help  anywhere.  No  hope,  no  joy,  no  love. 

Death  must  come.  Death  should  come,  before  the  shadow 
of  disgrace  fell  upon  the  Beloved,  of  whose  love  he  knew  now 
that  he  had  never  been  worthy.  Well  for  Lynette  that  he  had 
never  won  it.  Happy  for  her  that  she*  had  never  even  learned 
to  care  for  him  a  little. 

A  few  days  more,  and  the  great  Victorian  Age  had  drawn 
its  last  breath. 

The  people  went  in  the  London  streets  softly,  as  though 
cheir  footsteps  led  them  through  the  stately,  grand,  and  solemn 
chamber  where  lay  the  august,  illustrious  Dead. 

A  subdued,  busy  hum  of  preparation  was  perceptible  to  the 
ear.  The  eye  saw  the  thoroughfares  being  covered  with  sand, 
the  draperies  of  purple  rising  at  the  bidding  of  the  pulley  and 
the  rope,  the  carts  laden  with  wreaths  and  garlands  of  laurel, 
passing  from  point  to  point,  discharging  their  loads,  often  re- 
newed. 

A  lady  was  ushered  into  Saxham's  consulting-room  as  a 
long  procession  of  those  carts  went  creaking  by.  She  was  a 
dainty,  piquant,  golden-haired,  blue-eyed  little  woman,  quite 
.beautifully  dressed.  Her  gown  was  of  black,  in  deference  to 
the  natural  mourning,  but.  it  glittered  with  sequins,  and  huge 
diamonds  scintillated  in  her  tiny  ears,  and  she  wore  a  mantle 
of  royal  ermine,  that  reached  to  the  high  heels  of  her  little 
shoes.  Her  hat  was  of  the  toque  description.  Ermine  and 
lace  and  artificial  blooms  from  Parisian  window-gardens  went 
to  make  up  the  delicious  effect.  A  titled  name  adorned  her 
card,  which  bore  a  Mayfair  address.  She  seemed  in  radiant 
health.  As  Saxham  waited,  leaning  forward  in  his  consulting- 
chair,  to  receive  the  would-be  patient's  confidence,  you  can 
imagine  those  blue  eyes  of  his,  once  so  hard  and  keen,  looking 
out  of  their  hollowing  caves  with  a  sorrowful,  clear  sympathy 


530  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

that  was  very  different  from  their  old  regard.  To  his  women- 
patients  he  was  exquisitely  considerate.  Only  to  one  class  of 
patient  was  he  merciless  and  unsparing. 

Upon  the  woman  who  desired  to  rid  herself  of  her  sex- 
privilege,  upon  the  wedded  wanton  who  sought  to  make  of  her 
body,  designed  by  her  Maker  to  be  the  cradle  of  an  unborn 
generation,  its  Sepulchre,  Saxham's  glance  fell  like  a  sharp 
jcurved  sword.  He  wasted  few  words  upon  her,  but  each 
sentence,  as  it  fell  from  his  grim  mouth,  shrivelled  and  cor- 
roded, as  vitriol  dropped  on  naked  human  flesh.  He  listened 
now  in  silence  that  grew  grimmer  and  grimmer,  as  in  flute-like 
(accents,  their  smooth  course  hampered  by  the  very  slightest 
diffidence,  the  little  lady  explained.  Those  stormy  brows  of 
his  grew  tremendous. 

Ah,  the  tragic  errand,  the  snaky  purpose,  coiled  behind 
those  graceful  ambiguous  forms  of  speech.  Not  new  the 
tale  to  the  man  who  sat  and  heard.  She  admired  the  black- 
haired,  powerful  head,  and  the  square,  pale  face  with  its  short, 
aquiline,  rather  heavily-modelled  features,  and  the  broad,  white 
forehead  that  the  single  smudge  of  eyebrow  barred  pleased  her, 
as  it  did  most  women.  Only  the  man's  vivid  blue  eyes  were 
unpleasantly  hard  and  fixed  in  their  regard,  and  his  mouth 
frightened  her,  it  was  so  grim  and  set. 

She  was  not  as  robust  as  she  appeared,  she  said.  When  she 
had  been  married,  the  family  physician  had  said  to  her  mother 
that  it  would  hardly  be  advisable.  .  .  .  Delay  for  a  year  or 
two  would  be  wise.  And  her  husband  did  not  care  for  chil- 
dren. He  was  quite  willing.  He  had  sent  her  to  Saxham,  in 
fact.  Of  course,  the  Profession  of  Surgery  had  made  such 
huge  strides  that  Risk  need  not  enter  into  consideration  for  a 
moment.  .  .  .  And  heaps  of  her  women  friends  did  the  same. 
'And  expense  was  absolutely  no  object,  and  would  not  Dr. 
Saxham 

Saxham  struck  a  bell  that  was  upon  his  table,  and  rose  up 
with  his  piercing  eyes  upon  her  and  crossed  the  room  in  two 
strides.  He  flung  the  door  wide.  He  bowed  to  her  with  cool, 
withering,  ironical  courtesy  as  he  stood  waiting  for  her  to  de- 
part. 

She  hesitated,  laughed  with  the  ring  of  hysteria,  fluttered 
into  speech. 

"  You  are  not,  of  course,  aware  of  it,  but  I  happen  to  be 
an  old  schoolfellow  of  your  wife's."  Her  pretty,  inquisitive 
eyes  went,  back  to  the  writing-table,  where  stood  a  photograph 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  531 

of  Lynette,  recently  taken — an  exquisite,  delicate,  pearly-toned 
portrait  in  a  heavy  silver-gilt  frame.  "  We  used  to  be  great 
friends.  Du  Taine  was  my  maiden  name.  Surely  Mrs.  Sax- 
ham  has  spoken  to  you  of  Greta  Du  Taine?  I  left  Guelders- 
dorp  at  the  beginning  of  the  siege.  We  went  to  Cape  Town. 
I  met  my  husband  there.  He  is  Sir  Philip  Atherleigh, 
Baronet."  She  italicized  the  word.  "  He  was  with  his  regi- 
ment, going  to  the  Front.  We  were  married  almost  directly.1 
It  was  a  case  of  love  at  first  sight.  Now  we  are  staying  at 
our  town  house  in  Werekly  Square.  Mrs.  Saxham  must  visit 
us — my  husband  is  dying  to  know  her.  We  were  always  such 
tremendous  friends." 

"  I  am  unaware  of  it,  madam."  The  angry  blood  darkened 
his  face.  His  tone  told  her  plainly  that  the  boasted  friendship 
was  at  an  end. 

Greta  reddened  too,  and  her  turquoise-hued  eyes  dealt  him 
a  glance  of  bitter  hatred. 

"  I  did  not  stay  long  at  the  Convent  at  Gueldersdorp. 
Nuns  are  good,  simple  creatures,  and  easily  imposed  upon. 
And — 'mother  did  not  wish  me  to  be  educated  with  strays  and 
foundlings — dressed  up  like  young  ladies — actually  allowed  to 
mingle  upon  equal  terms  with  them " 

It  was  Cornelius  Agrippa,  I  think,  who  once  materialized 
the  Devil  as  an  empty  purse.  The  necromancer  should  have 
evoked  the  Spirit  of  Evil  in  the  shape  of  a  spiteful  woman. 
Greta  went  on : 

" — Such  Society  as  there  was,  I  should  say.  You  were  at 
Gueldersdorp  throughout  the  siege,  and  for  some  time  before 
it,  I  think,  Dr.  Saxham." 

Two  pairs  of  blue  eyes  met,  the  man's  hard  as  shining  stones, 
the  woman's  dancing  with  malicious  intention.  Saxham  stiffly 
bent  his  head.  But  her  fear  of  him  had  evaporated  in  her 
triumph.  Those  inquisitive,  turquoise  eyes  had  an  excellent 
memory  behind  them.  Something  in  the  shape  of  the  square 
black  head  and  hulking  shoulders  quickened  it  now. 

"  It's  odd "     Her  smile  was  a  grin    that    showed  sharp 

little  white  teeth  ready  to  bite,  and  her  speech  was  pointed 
with  venomed  meaning.  "  I  used  to  go  out  a  great  deal  in 
such  Society  as  the  place  possessed.  Yet  I  do  not  remember 
having  met  you?" 

Saxham's  cold  eyes  clashed  with  the  malicious  turquoises. 

"  I  did  not  mingle  in  Society  at  Gueldersdorp." 

He  signed  to  the  waiting  manservant  to  open  the  hall-door. 


532  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

She  drew  her  snowy  ermines  about  her  and  rustled  over  the 
threshold.  But  in  the  hall  she  turned  and  dealt  her  thrust. 

"No?  You  were  too  busy  attending  cases.  Police-Court 
cases.  .  .  ." 

Her  light  laugh  fluttered  mockingly  about,  his  ears. 

"  I  remember  the  funny  headings  of  some  of  the  newspaper 
reports.  .  .  .  'Another  Rampant  Drunk!  The  Town  painted 
Red  Again  by  the  Dop  Doctor ! ' ' 

"Door!"  said  Saxham,  shaping  the  word  with  stiff  grey 
lips.  His  face  was  the  face  of  Death,  who  had  come  close  up 
and  touched  him.  Her  little  ladyship  went  out  to  her  waiting 
auto-brougham,  and  her  light,  malignant  laugh  fluttered  back 
as  the  servant  shut  the  hall-door. 

Saxham  went  back  into  the  consulting-room.  The  Spring 
sunshine  poured  in  through  the  tall  muslin-screened  window. 
There  was  a  cheerful  play  of  light  and  colour  in  the  place. 
But  to  the  man  who  sat  there  it  was  full  of  shadows,  dark 
and  gloomy,  threatening  and  grim.  And  not  the  least 
formidable  among  them  was  the  shadow  of  the  Dop  Doctor  of 
Gueldersdorp,  looming  portentously  over  that  fair  face  within 
the  silver-gilt  frame  upon  the  writing-table,  stretching  out  long 
octopus  arms  to  drag  down  shame  upon  it,  and  heap  ashes  of 
humiliation  undeserved  upon  the  lovely  head,  and  mock  her 
with  the  solemn  altar-vows  that  bound  her  to  the  drunkard. 


LXI 

THE  Great-Victorian  Age  was  laid  to  rest. 

The  great  pageant  of  mortality  had  wound  along  the  ap- 
pointed route,  under  the  cold  grey  February  sky,  an  apparently 
endless,  slowly-marching  column  of  Infantry,  Artillery,  and 
Cavalry  of  the  Line,  progressing  pace  by  pace  between  the  im- 
movable barriers  of  great-coated  soldiers,  and  the  surging,  rest- 
less sea  of  black-clad  men  and  women  pent  up  on  either  hand 
behind  them.  The  long  rolling  of  muffled  drums,  and  the  dull 
boom  of  cannon;  the  baring  of  men's  heads;  the  wail  of  the 
Funeral  March,  the  flash  of  suddenly  whitened  faces  turned 
one  way  to  greet  Her  as  She  passed  to  Her  rest  upon  a  gun- 
carriage,  as  fitting  an  aged  warrior  Queen,  drawn  to  her  mated 
couch  within  one  tomb  by  the  willing,  faithful  hands  of  her 
sons  of  the  twin  Services,  who  shall  forget,  that  heard  and  wit- 
nessed ? 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  533 

Who  shall  forget  ? 

The  Royal  Standard  draped  across  the  satin-white,  gold- 
fringed  pall,  where  on  rich  crimson  cushions  rested  the  Three 
Emblems  of  Sovereignty.  The  dignified,  kingly  figure  of  a 
man,  no  longer  young,  bowed  with  sorrow  under  the  Imperial 
heritage,  preceding  the  splendid  sombre  company  of  crowned 
heads ;  the  blaze  of  uniforms  and  Orders,  the  clang  of  sword 
and  bridle,  the  potent  ring  of  steel  on  steel,  the  crimson-trapped, 
shining  horses  pacing  slowly,  drawing  the  gilded  carriages  of 
State,  their  closed  windows,  frosted  with  chilly  fog,  yielding 
scant  glimpses  of  well-known  faces.  One  most  beloved,  most 
lovely,  and  no  less  so  in  sorrow  than  in  joy.  "  Did  you  see 
her  ?  "  the  women  asked  of  one  another,  as  the  pageant  passed 
and  vanished,  and  one  good  soul,  all  breathless  from  the  crush, 
gasped  as  she  straightened  her  battered  bonnet  and  twitched 
her  trodden  skirt:  "There  never  was  a  better  than  the  blessed 
soul  that's  gone,  but  there  couldn't  be  a  sweeter  nor  a  beauti- 
fuller  Queen  than  the  one  she  leaves  behind  her." 

The  last  wail  of  the  Funeral  March  having  plained  away  to 
silence,  the  last  cannon-shot  gone  booming  out,  down  came  the 
foggy  dusk  on  mourning  London.  A  chill  rime  settled  on  the 
swaying  laurel  wreaths,  and  on  the  folds  of  the  purple  draperies 
fluttering  to  the  dying  of  the  dismal  day.  The  shops  were 
shut,  and  many  of  the  restaurants,  but  the  windows  of  the 
Clubs  gleamed  radiantly  down  Piccadilly,  and  every  refresh- 
ment-bar and  public-house  was  thronged  to  bursting.  Day 
changed  to  evening,  and  evening  lengthened  into  night,  and  the 
pavements  began  to  be  crowded.  The  Flesh  Bazaar  was 
being  held  in  Piccadilly,  and  all  up  Regent  Street  and  all  down 
the  Haymarket  the  chaffering  went  on  for  bodies  and  for  souls. 

A  deadly  physical  and  mental  lassitude  weighed  on  Saxham. 
His  soul  was  sick  with  the  long,  hopeless  struggle.  He  would 
end  it.  He  would  die,  and  take  away  the  shadow  from  Lyn- 
ette's  pure  life,  and  leave  her  free.  His  will  devised  to  her 
everything  he  possessed,  leaving  her  untrammelled.  Let  her 
learn  to  love  once  more,  let  her  marry  a  better  man,  and  be 
happy  in  her  husband  and  her  children. 

He  turned  in  at  one  of  the  chemist's  shops.  One  or  two 
gaudily-dressed,  haggard  women  were  at  the  distant  end  of  the 
counter,  in  conference  with  an  assistant.  Saxham  spoke  to  the 
chemist,  a  grey-whiskered,  fatherly  individual,  who  listened, 
bending  his  sleek  bald  head.  The  chemist  bowed,  but  as  he 


534  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

had  not  the  honour  of  knowing  his  customer,  would  the  gen- 
tleman oblige  by  signing  the  poison-book,  in  compliance  with 
Schedule  F  of  the  Pharmacy  Act,  1868? 

Saxham  nodded.  The  chemist  produced  the  register,  and 
opened  it  on  the  counter  before  Saxham,  and  supplied  him  with 
pen  and  ink.  Then  he  found  that  he  had  business  at  the  other 
end  of  the  shop,  and  when  he  returned  he  smartly  closed  the 
book,  without  even  satisfying  himself  whether  the  client  had 
written  down  his  name  and  address,  or  merely  pretended  to. 
Then  he  filled  a  two-ounce  vial  with  the  fragrant  deadly  acid, 
and  put  on  a  yellow  label  that  named  the  poison,  but  not  the 
vendor,  and  stoppered  and  capsuled,  and  sealed,  and  made  it 
into  a  neat  little  parcel,  and  Saxham  paid,  and  put  the  parcel 
in  his  inner  breast-pocket,  and  turned  to  leave  the  shop. 

It  was  crowded  now ;  the  roaring  business  of  the  little  hours 
was  in  full  swing.  The  three  assistants  ran  about  like  busy 
ants;  the  chemist  joined  his  merry  men  at  the  game  of  making 
money,  serving  alcoholic  liquors,  mixing  pick-me-ups,  dispensing 
little  bottles  of  tabloids  and  little  boxes  of  jujubes,  taking  cash 
and  giving  change. 

The  pack  was  terrific.  Saxham,  his  hat  pulled  low  over  his 
broad  brows,  his  great  chest  stemming  the  tide  of  humanity  that 
momentarily  rolled  over  the  threshold,  was  slowly  making  his 
way  to  the  door,  when  he  felt  the  arresting  touch  of  a  hand 
upon  his  arm. 

The  owner  of  the  hand  belonged,  as  ninety  per  cent,  of  the 
women  in  the  place  belonged,  to  Francois  Villon's  liberal  sis- 
terhood. Something  in  the  pale  square  face  and  massive  shoul- 
ders had  attracted  her  vagrant  fancy.  She  had  quitted  her 
companions — two  gaily-dressed,  be-rouged  women  and  a  blue- 
eyed,  yellow-haired,  moustached  young  German,  whose  stripy 
tweeds,  vociferously-patterned  linen,  necktie  of  too  obvious 
pattern,  and  high-crowned  bowler  hat,  advertised  the  Berlin 
tailor  and  haberdasher  and  hatter  at  their  customer's  expense, 
as  Saxham  went  by.  Now  she  looked  up  into  the  strange,  sor- 
rowfirl  eyes  that  were  shaded  by  his  tilted  hat-brim,  and  twined 
her  thin  hands  caressingly  about  his  arm,  asking: 

"Why  do  you  look  so  queer?  Is  anything  wrong — excuse 
me  asking — or  is  it  the  Funeral  has  given  you  the  blue  hump? 

It  did  me.  I've  not  felt  so  bad  since  mother '  She  broke 

off.  Then  a  shriH  peal  of  laughter  from  one  of  her  female  com- 
panions following  a  comment  made  by  the  other — "  One  of 
those  .  .  ." — she  jerked  her  chin  contemptuously,  tossing  an 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  535 

unhintable  epithet  in  the  direction  of  her  lady  friends — "says 
you're  ugly.  I  don't  think  so.  I  like  your  face."  Her  own  was 
cruelly,  terribly  young,  even  under  the  rouge  and  the  white 
cream  of  zinc,  and  the  rice-powder.  "  Were  you  looking  for  a 
friend,  dear?  "  she  asked,  tightening  the  clasp  of  her  thin,  fever- 
ish hands. 

"  Yes,"  said  Saxham,  with  a  curious  smile  that  made  no 
illumination  in  his  sombre  face.  "  For  Death !  There  is  no 
better  friend  than  Death,  my  child,  either  for  you  or  me." 

Gently  he  unloosed  the  burning  hands  that  clutched  him, 
and  turned  and  pushed  his  way  out  through  the  noisy,  raving, 
chaffering,  patchouli-scented  crowd,  and  was  gone,  swallowed 
up  in  the  roaring  torrent,  of  humanity  that  foamed  down  Picca- 
dilly, leaving  her  frozen  and  stricken  and  staring. 


LXII 

MONTHS  went  by.  The  slight  overtures  Lynette  had  made 
towards  a  more  familiar  friendship  had  ceased  since  that  rebuff 
of  Saxham's.  She  had  never  since  set  foot  in  his  third-floor 
bedroom,  where  Little  Miss  Muffet  and  Georgy  Porgy  and  the 
whole  regiment  of  Nursery-Rhyme  characters,  attired  in  the 
brilliant  aniline  hues  adored  of  inartistic,  frankly-barbaric  baby- 
hood, adorned  the  top  of  the  brown-paper  dado,  and  flourished 
on  the  fireplace  tiles. 

Only  a  little  while,  and  he  told  himself  that  he  would  set  her 
free.  Before  the  natural  craving  for  love,  and  life,  and  happi- 
ness should  brim  the  cup  of  her  fair  sweet  womanhood  to  over- 
flowing; before  her  sex  should  rise  in  desperate  revolt,  against 
himself  her  gaoler,  Death  should  unlock  her  prison-doors  and 
strike  the  fetters  from  these  slender  wrists,  and  point  to  Hope 
beckoning  her  to  cross  the  threshold  of  a  new  life. 

Soon,  very  soon  now.  The  two-ounce  vial  that  held  the 
swift  dismissing  pang  was  in  the  locked  drawer  of  the  writing- 
table  beside  the  whisky-flask.  When  he  was  alone  and  undis- 
turbed— for  Lynette  seldom  came  to  his  consulting-room  now 
— Saxham  would  take  it  out  and  dandle  it,  and  hold  it  in  his 
hands. 

He  would  put  the  vial  back  presently,  and  lock  the  drawer, 
and,  it  being  dark,  perhaps  would  delay  to  light  his  lamp,  that 
he  might  torture  himself  with  looking  at  that  pitiless  shadow- 
play,  that  humble  comedy-drama  of  sweet,  common,  unattain- 


536  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

able  things  that  was  every  night  renewed  in  those  two  rooms 
over  the  garage  at  the  bottom  of  the  yard. 

There  was  a  third  performer  in  the  shadow-play  now.  You 
could  hear  him  roaring  lustily  at  morn  and  noon  and  milky  eve. 
The  Wonderfullest  Baby  you  ever! 

When  W.  Keyse  was  invited  by  Saxham  to  inspect  his  son 
and  heir,  crimson,  and  pulpy,  and  squirming  in  a  flannel  wrap, 
the  Adam's  apple  in  the  lean  throat  of  the  proud  father  jumped, 
and  his  ugly,  honest  eyes  blinked  behind  salt  water.  The 
nipper  had  grabbed  at  his  ear  as  he  stooped  down.  And  that 
made  the  Fourth  Time,  and  he  hadn't  even  thanked  the  Doctor 
yet. 

A  date,  he  hoped,  would  arrive  when  a  chalk  or  two  of  that 
mounting  score  might  be  wiped  off  the  board.  He  said  so  to 
Mrs.  Keyse,  the  first  time  she  was  allowed  to  sit  up  and  play 
at  doing  a  bit  of  needlework.  Not  that  she  did  a  stitch,  and 
charnce  it!  With  her  eyes — beautiful  eyes,  with  that  new  look 
of  mother-love  in  them;  proud  eyes,  with  that  inexhaustible 
store  of  riches  all  her  own,  worshipping  the  crinkly  red  snub 
nose  and  the  funny  moving  mouth,  and  the  little  downy  head, 
and  everything  else  that  goes  to  make  up  a  properly-constituted 
Baby. 

"  I  think  the  time'll  come,  deer.  Watch  out,  an'  one  d'y 
you'll  see!" 

"  I'll  watch  it !  "  affirmed  W.  Keyse.  "  And  wot  are  you 
cranin'  your  neck  for,  tryin'  to  look  out  o'  winder?  Blessed 
if  I  ever  see  such  a  precious  old  Dutch ! " 

The  song  was  in  the  mouths  of  the  people  that  year.  She 
laughed,  and  rubbed  her  pale  cheek  against  his. 

"  You  be  my  eyes,  deer.  Peep  and  see  if  the  Doctor  is 
in  'is  room.  .  .  ." 

It  was  ten  o'clock  on  a  shining  May  morning,  and  the  clouds 
that  raced  over  great  grimy  London  were  white,  and  there  were 
patches  of  blue  between.  The  trees  in  the  squares  were  dressed 
in  new  green  leaves,  and  the  iris  and  ranunculuses  in  the  parks 
were  out,  and  the  policemen  had  shed  their  heavy  uniforms, 
and  instead  of  hyacinths  behind  the  glass  there  were  pots  of 
tulips  in  bloom  upon  the  window-sills  of  the  two  rooms  over 
the  garage.  And  the  Doctor,  who  had  been  seeing  patients 
ever  since  nine,  was  sitting  at  the  writing-table,  said  W.  Keyse, 
with  his  'ead  upon  'is  'ands. 

"Like  as  if  'e  was  tired,  deer,  or  un'appy?  Or  tired  an* 
un'appy  both  ?, " 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  537 

"  Stryte,  you  'ave  it !  "  admitted  W.  Keyse,  after  cautious 
Inspection. 

"  The  Doctor — don't  let  'im  see  you  lookin'  at  'im,  darlin', 
or  Je  might  think,  which  Good  Gracious  know  how  wrong  it 
'ud  be,  as  you  was  a  kind  o'  Peepin'  Pry — the  Doctor  'ave  fell 
orf  an'  chynged  a  good  deal  lately — in  'is  looks,  I  mean !  "  said 
Mrs.  Keyse,  tucking  in  the  corner  of  the  flannel  over  the  little 
downy  head.  "  Wasted  in  'is  flesh,  like — got  'oiler  round  the 
eyes " 

"  So  'e  'as !  "  W.  Keyse  whistled  and  slapped  his  leg.  "  An' 
I  bin'  noticin'  it  on  me  own  for  a  long  while  back — now  I  come 
to  think  of  it.  Woddyer  pipe's  the  matter  wiv  'im?  Not  ill? 

Lumme!  if  'e  was  ill "     The  eyes  of  W.  Keyse  became 

circular  with  consternation. 

"  No,  no,  dear !  "  She  assured  him,  in  his  ignorance,  that 
the  maladies  of  the  soul  are  more  agonizing  far  than  those  that 
afflict  the  body.  "  Down'arted,  like,  an'  'opeless  an' — an' 
lonely •" 

Downhearted,  and  hopeless,  and  lonely!  The  jaw  of  W. 
Keyse  dropped,  and  his  ugly  eyes  became  circular  with  sheer 
astonishment. 

"  Him!  Wiv  a  beautiful  'ouse  to  live  in — an'  Carriage  Toffs 
with  Titles  fair  beggin'  'im  to  come  an'  feel  their  pulses  an' 
be  pyde  for  it,  an'  Scientific  Institooshuns  an'  'Orspital  Com- 
mittees fightin'  to  git  'im  on  their  staffs — an'  all  the  pypers 
praisin'  'im  for  wot  'e  done  at  Gueldersdorp,  an'  Government 
tippin'  'im  the  'Ow  Do?  an'  thank  you  kindly,  Mister! — an* 
"  W.  Keyse  could  only  suppose  that  Mrs.  Keyse  was  play- 
ing a  bit  of  gaff  on  hers  truly — "  and  him  with  a  wife.  Mar- 
ried an'  'appy,  an'  goin'  to  be  'appier  yet."  He  pointed  to  the 
little  red  snub  nose  peeping  between  the  folds  of  the  flannel. 
"  When  a  little  nipper  like  that  comes " 

She  reddened,  paled,  burst  out  crying. 

"  O  William,!    William " 

Her  William  kissed  her,  and  dried  her  tears.  He  called  it 
mopping  her  dial,  but  you  have  not  forgotten  that,  as  the 
upper  house-and-parlour-maid  had  at  first  said,  both  Her  and 
Him  were  plainly  descended  from  the  Lowest  Circles.  She 
had  melted  afterwards,  on  learning  that  Mrs.  Keyse  had  been 
actually  mentioned  in  Despatches  for  carrying  tea  under  fire 
to  the  prisoners  at  the  Fort;  had  sought  her  society, 
lent  paper-patterns,  and  imparted,  in  confidence,  what  she  knew 
of  the  secret  of  Saxham's  wedded  life. 


538  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"Dear  William!  My  good,  kind  Love!  Best  I  should 
'urt  you,  deer,  if  'urt  you  'ave  to  be.  You  see  them  three  large 
winders  covered  wiv  lovely  lace  ?  " 

"  'Ers — Mrs.  Saxham's.  He  nodded,  trying  to  look 
wise. 

"Yes,  darlin'.  Mrs.  Saxham's  bedroom  and  dressin'-room 
they  belongs  to.  I've  bin  inside  the  bedroom  wiv  the  upper 
'ouse-an'-parlour-myde,  an'  a  Fairy  Princess  in  a  Drury  Lane 
Pantomime  might  'ave  a  bigger  place  to  sleep  in — but  not  a 
beautifuller.  When  the  Foreign  Young  Person  come  in  of 
evenin's  to  git  'er  lady  dressed  for  dinner,  she  snaps  up  the 
lights,  bein'  a  kind  soul,  before  she  dror'  the  blinds,  to  give  me 
a  charnst  like,  to  see  in."  She  stroked  the  tweed  sleeve.  "  An* 
once  or  twice  Mrs.  Saxham  'as  come  in  before  they'd  bin  pull 
dahn,  an'  then — O  William! — there  was  everythink  in  that 
room  on  Gawd's  good  earth  a  'usband  could  ask  for  to  make 
'im  'appy,  except  the  wife's  'art  beatin'  warm  and  lovin'  in  the 
middle  of  it  all." 

"  Cripps !  .  .  .  You  don't  never  mean  .  .  .  ?  "  He  gasped. 
"Wot?  Don't  the  Doctor  make  no  odds  to  'er?  A  Man 
Like  That?"  .  .  . 

She  clung  to  the  heart  that  loved  her,  and  told  him  what  she 
had  heard.  .  .  .  And  if  Saxham  had  known  how  two  of  the 
unconscious  actors  in  his  Shadow-Play  pitied  him,  the  knowl- 
edge would  have  been  as  vitriol  poured  into  an  open  wound. 


LXIII 

THE  card  of  Major  Bingham  Wrynche,  C.B.,  was  brought  to 
Saxham  one  morning,  as,  his  early-calling  patients  seen  and  dis- 
missed, the  Doctor  was  going  out  to  his  waiting  motor- 
brougham.  Following  what  he  was  prone  to  call  his  pasteboard, 
Bingo  presented  himself — a  large,  cool,  well-bred,  if  rather 
stupid-looking,  man,  arrayed  in  excellently-fitting  clothes,  say- 
ing: 

"  You  were  goin'  out?  Don't  let  me  keep  you.  Look  in 
again !  " — even  as  he  deposited  a  tightly-rolled  silk  umbrella 
in  the  waste-paper  basket,  and  tenderly  balanced  his  gleaming 
hat  upon  the  edge  of  the  writing-table,  and  chose,  by  the  ordeal 
of  punch,  a  comfortable  chair,  as  a  man  prepared  to  remain. 
Saxham,  pushing  a  cigar-box  across  the  consulting-room  table, 
asked  after  Lady  Hannah. 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  535 

"  First-rate.  Seems  to  agree  with  her,  having  a  one-armed 
husband  to  fuss  over." 

"  She  won't  have  a  one-armed  husband  long,"  returned  Sax- 
ham,  not  unkindly,  glancing  at  the  bandaged  and  strapped-up 
limb  that  had  been  shattered  by  an  expanding  bullet,  and  was 
neatly  suspended  in  its  cut  sleeve  in  the  shiny  black  sling. 

"  By  the  Living  Tinker,  she's  had  him  long  enough  for  me!  " 
exploded  Bingo,  who  seemed  larger  and  fussier  than  ever,  if 
a  thought  less  pink.  "  So  you'd  say  if  they  tucked  a  napkin 
under  your  chin  at  meals,  and  cut  your  meat  up  into  dice  for 
you,  and  you'd  ever  tried  to  fold  up  your  newspaper  with  one 
hand,  or  had  to  stop  a  perfect  stranger  in  the  street,  as  I  did 
just  now  outside  your  door,  and  ask  him  to  fish  a  cab-fare  out 
of  J7our  right-hand  trouser-pocket  if  he'd  be  so  good,  because 
your  idiot  of  a  man  ought  to  have  put  your  money  in  the  other 
one." 

"You're  lookin'  at  my  head,"  pursued  the  Major,  "and  I 
don't  wonder.  She's  been  and  given  me  a  fringe  again.  'Ston- 
ishing  thing  the  Feminine  Touch  is.  Let  your  servant  part 
your  hair  and  knot  your  necktie,  and  you  simply  look  a  filthy 
bounder.  Your  wife  does  it — and  you  hardly  know  yourself 
in  the  glass,  and  wonder  why  they  didn't  christen  you  Anna- 
Maria.  Not  bad  weeds  these,  by  half.  You  remember  those 
cigars  of  Kreil's  and  the  thunderin'  price  me  and  Beauvayse 
paid  for  'em,  biddin'  against  each  other  for  fun?"  The  big 
man  blew  a  sigh  with  the  thin  blue  smoke-wreath,  and  added: 
"  And  before  the  last  box  was  dust  and  ashes,  poor  old  Toby 
was.  And  that  chap  Levestre — never  fit  to  brown  his  shoes — 
'11  be  Marquess  of  Foltlebarre  when  the  old  man  goes,  and  by 
all  accounts  he's  contemplatin'  the  move.  Queer  thing,  Luck 
is — when  you  come  to  think  of  it?" 

Saxham  nodded  and  looked  at  the  clock.  A  dull  impatience 
of  this  large,  bland,  prosperous  personage  was  growing  in  him. 
From  the  rim  the  top-hat  had  left  upon  his  shining  forehead 
to  the  tightly-screwed  eyeglass  that  assisted  his  left  eye;  from 
the  pink  Malmaison  carnation  in  the  buttonhole  of  his  frock- 
coat  to  the  buff  spats  that  matched  his  expansive  waistcoat  in 
shade,  the  large  Major  was  the  personification  of  luxurious, 
pampered,  West  End  swelldom,  the  type  of  a  class  Saxham  ab- 
horred. He  had  seen  the  heavy  dandy  under  other  conditions, 
in  circumstances  strenuous,  severe,  even  tragic.  Then  he  had 
borne  himself  after  a  simple,  manly  fashion.  Now  he  had  back- 
slidden, retrograded,  relaxed.  Saxham.  always  destitute  of  the 


540  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

saving  sense  of  humour,  frowned  as  he  looked  upon  the  Sybarite 
of  Clubland,  and  the  sullen  lowering  of  the  Doctor's  heavy 
smudge  of  black  eyebrows  suggested  to  the  Major  that  his  re- 
grets for  "  poor  old  Toby  "  had  been  misplaced.  The  man 
who  had  married  Miss  Mildare  could  hardly  be  expected  to  join 
with  heartiness  in  deploring  the  untimely  decease  of  his  prede* 
'  cessor. 

"  Not  that  it  could  have  come  to  anything  between  poor  Toby 
and  her  if  the  dear  old  chap  had  lived,"  reflected  Bingo,  and 
wondered  if  the  Doctor  knew  about — about  Lessie.  "  Bound 
to,"  he  mentally  decided,  "  if  he  keeps  his  ears  only  half  open 
as  other  men  keep  theirs.  Didn't  a  brace  of  bounders  of  the 
worst  discuss  the  story  in  all  its  bearin's,  sitting  behind  my  wife 
and  Mrs.  Saxham  in  the  stalls  at  the  Variety  the  other  night. 
Everybody  is  discussin'  it  now  that  the  Foltlebarres  have  left 
off  payin'  Lessie  not  to  talk,  and  provided  for  her  and  the  young- 
ster out  of  the  estate,  and  Whittinger's  given  her  a  back  seat 
in  the  family.  .  .  .  That  family,  too!  .  .  .  Lud!  what  a 
rum  thing  Luck  is !  " 

The  musing  Major  cleared  his  throat,  and  his  large,  rather 
stupid,  blonde  face  was  perfectly  stolid  as  he  smoked  and  stared 
at  his  host,  reminding  himself  that  Beauvayse  had  been  jealous 
of  Saxham,  Attached  Medical  Staff,  Gueldersdorp,  and  had 
feared  that,  if  the  fellow  knew  of  the  scratch  against  him,  he 
might  force  the  running,  and  recalling,  with  a  tingling  of  the 
shamed  blood  in  his  expansive  countenance,  how  he— Wrynche 
— had  let  Beauvayse  into  the  sordid  secret  that  Alderman 
Brooker  had  blabbed.  He  wondered,  looking  at  the  square,  set 
face,  whether  Saxham  had  really  earned  the  degrading  nick- 
name that  he  could  not  get  quite  right.  The  Peg  Doctor,  was 
it? — or  the  Lush  Doctor?  Something  in  that  way.  .  .  .  Not 
that  Saxham  looked  like  a  man  given  to  lifting  his  elbow  with 
undue  frequency.  .  .  . 

—But  you  never  know,"  thought  experienced  Bingo  sagely, 
even  as,  in  his  heavy  fashion,  he  went  pounding  on:  "The 
Chief's  continuin'  the  Work  of  Pacification,  and  acceptin'  the 
surrender  of  arms — any  date  of  manufacture  you  like  between 
the  chassepot  of  1870  and  the  leather-breeched  firelock  of  Oliver 
Cromwell's  time.  The  modern  kind  you  find  by  employin'  the 
Divinin'  Rod  " — the  large  narrator  bestowed  a  wink  on  Sax- 
ham  and  added — "  on  the  backs  of  the  fellows  who  buried  the 
guns.  Never  fails — used  in  that  way.  And — as  it  chances 
— I  have  a  communication  to  make  to  you." 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  541 

"  A  communication — a  message — from  the  Chief  to  me  ?  " 

Saxham's  face  changed,  and  softened,  and  brightened  curi- 
ously and  pleasantly. 

Major  Bingo  nodded  and  cleared  his  throat.  He  rebalanced 
his  shiny  hat  upon  the  table  corner,  and  said  with  his  eyes  en- 
gaged in  this  way: 

"  I  was  to  remind  you — from  him — that — not  long  before 
the  ending  of  the  Siege,  a  lady  who  is  now  a  near  connection 
of  yours  sustained  a  terrible  bereavement  through  the — infer- 
nally dastardly  act  of  a — person  then  unknown.  .  .  ." 

Saxham's  vivid  eyes  leaped  at  the  speaker's  as  if  to  drag  out 
the  knowledge  he  withheld.  But  Bingo  was  balancing  the 
glossy  triumph  of  a  Bond  Street  hatter,  and  looked  at  it  and 
not  at  the  Doctor,  who  said: 

"You  refer  to  the  murder  of  the  Mother-Superior  at  the 
Convent  on  the  date  of  February  the  — th,  1900.  And  you  say 
a  person  then  unknown.  .  .  .  Has  the  murderer  been  ar- 
rested?" 

Major  Bingo  shook  his  head. 

"  He  hasn't  been  arrested,  but  his  name  is  known.  You 
remember  the  runner  who  came  in  from  Diamond  Town  with 
a  letter  for  a  man  called  Casey?  Not  long  after — after  my 
wife  was  exchanged  for  a  spy  of  Bronnckers'?  " 

"  I  did  not  see  the  man  myself,"  returned  Saxham,  "  but  I 
perfectly  recollect  his  getting  through." 

Major  Bingo  said : 

"  I  thought  you  would.  Well,  the  letter  was  a  blind,  the 
bearer  an  agent  of  the  firm  of  Huysmans  and  Eybel,  sent  to 
make  certain  of  our  weakest  points  before  they  put  in  the  attack 
on  the  Barala  town;  and — that's  the  man  who  committed  the 
murder! " 

"The  man  who  committed  the  murder?" 

Saxham's  vivid  eyes  were  intent  upon  the  Major's  face.  The* 
Major  coughed,  and  went  on: 

"  My  wife  came  across  that  man  at  Tweipans  under  curi- 
ous circumstances,  which  I'm  here  to  put  before  you  as  plainly 
as  may  be.  ...  She'd  met  him  before  the  Siege,  travelling  up 
from  Cape  Town.  He  scraped  acquaintance,  called  himself  a 
loyal  Johannesburger,  and  an  Agent  of  the  British  South  Afri- 
can Secret-Intelligence-Bureau.  Not  that  there  ever  was  such 
a  Bureau."  Major  Bingo  blinked  nervously,  and  ran  a  thick 
finger  round  the  inside  of  his  collar  as  he  added :  "  The  beggar 
spoofed  Lady  Hannah  up  hill  and  down  dale  with  that,  and 


542  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

she  believed  kirn.  And  when  she  subsequently  flew  the  coop- 
dash  this  cold  of  mine !  .  .  ." 

The  Major  drew  out  a  very  large  pink  cambric  pocket-hand- 
kerchief, and  performed  behind  its  shelter  an  elaborate  but.  un- 
convincing sneeze: 

"  — When  she  shot  the  moon  with  Nixey's  mare  and  spider, 
it  was  by  private  arrangement  with  this  oily,  lying  blackguard, 
'who  had  given  her  an  address — a  farm  on  the  Transvaal  Bor- 
der, known  as  Haargrond  Plaats — where  she  might  communi- 
cate with  him  and  another  scoundrel  in  the  same  line,  supposin' 
she  chose  to  do  a  little  business  of  her  own  in  Secret  Intelli- 


gence  

Saxham  interrupted: 

"  I  shall  say  nothing  to  my  wife  of  this,  and  I  trust  you  will 
impress  upon  Lady  Hannah  that  it.  would  be  highly  inadvisable 
for  her  to  do  so." 

"  She  won't,  you  may  depend  on  it."  Major  Bingo  palpably 
grew  warm,  and  mopped  the  dew  from  his  large,  kind,  rather 
stupid  countenance  with  the  pink  cambric  handkerchief — "  She's 
awfully  afraid,  as  it  is,  that  a  word  or  two  she  dropped  at  Twei- 
pans,  to  that  infernal  liar  and  swindler,  who'd  bled  her  of  a 
monkey,  good  English  cash — paid  for  procurin'  and  forwardin' 
Secret  Information  that  he  took  damned  good  care  should  reach 
us  at  Gueldersdorp  too  late  to  be  of  use — led  up  to — to  the 
crime !  .  .  .  By  the  Living  Tinker !  it's  out  at  last !  " 

The  big  man,  so  cool  and  nonchalant  a  minute  or  so  before, 
fanned  himself  with  the  pocket-handkerchief,  and  turned  red, 
and  went  white,  and  went  red,  and  turned  white  half  a  dozen 
times,  in  twice  as  many  beats  of  his  flurried  pulse. 

— Out  at  last,  Saxham,  and  that's  why  I've  been  gulpin* 
(and  blunderin'  and  bogglin'  for  the  last  ten  minutes.  Poof !  " 
'Major  Bingo  exhaled  a  vast  breath  of  relief.  "  Tellin'  tales 
on  a  woman — and  her  your  wife — even  when  she's  begged  you 
to,  isn't  the  sweetest  job  a  man  can  tackle!  " 

"  Let  me  have  this  story  in  detail  once  and  for  all,"  said 
Saxham,  turning  a  stern,  white  face,  and  hard  compelling  eyes 
upon  the  embarrassed  Major.  "  What  utterance  of  Lady 
Hannah's  do  you  suppose  to  have  led  to  the  tragedy  in  the  Con- 
vent Chapel  ?  Upon  this  point  I  must  and  shall  be  clear  before 
you  leave  me !  " 

"  You  shall  have  things  as  clearly  as  I  can  put  'em.  This 
pretended  Agent  of  the  Secrer-Intelligence-Bureau  that  never 
existed,  and  who  went  by  a  Dutch  name  that's  as  common 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  543 

among  Boers  as  Murphy  is  among  Irishmen,  arranged  to  pass 
off  my  wife  as  his  sister,  a  refugee  from  Gueldersdorp,  who'd 
married  a  German  drummer,  and  buried  him  not  long  before. 
Women  are  so  dashed  fond  of  play-actin'!  Kids,  Saxharn, 
that's  what  they  are  in  their  weakness  for  dressin'  up  and 
makin'-believe.  And  my  wife " 

The  large  Major  was  in  a  violent  lather  as  he  ran  the  thick 
finger  round  inside  his  collar,  and  swallowed  at  the  lump  in  his 
throat. 

"  — My  wife  saw  this  man  at  Kink's  hotel  at  Tweipans  from 
time  to  time.  He  came,  I  should  explain,  to  sell  bogus  infor- 
mation for  good  money.  And  as  the  boodle  ran  low,  the  cloven 
hoof  began  to  show,  and  the  brute  became  downright  inso- 
lent." 

"  As  might  have  been  expected,"  said  Saxharn,  coldly. 

"  — Kept  his  hat  on  in  my  wife's  room,  talked  big,  and 
twiddled  a  signet  ring  he  wore,"  went  on  the  Major. 
"  And  bein'  quick,  you  know,  and  sharp  as  they  make 
'em,  you  know,  my  wife  recognized  the  crest  of  an  old 
acquaintance  cut  upon  the  stone.  I  knew  the  man  myself  " — 
declared  Major  Bingo — •"  and  a  better  never  stepped  in  leather. 
A  brother-officer  of  the  Chief's,  too,  his  senior  troop-Captain, 
and  a  rippin'  good  fellow — Dicky  Mildare,  of  the  Grey  Hus- 
sars." 

"  Mildare!  "  repeated  Saxharn.  A  faint  stain  of  colour  crept 
up  under  his  dull  white  skin.  He  waited  with  keen  attention 
for  what  was  coming. 

"  You  understand,  Saxham,  the  name  did  it.  My  wife  had 
seen  the  present  Mrs.  Saxham  at  Gueldersdorp,  and,  not  knowin' 
that  the  surname  of  Mildare  had  been  taken  by  her  at  the  wish 
of  her  adopted  mother,  supposed — got  the  maggot  into  her. 
head  that  the  Mother-Superior's  ward  might  possibly  be  a — a 
daughter  of  the  man  who  the  seal-ring  had  belonged  to,  know- 
ing— Lord!  what  a  mull  I'm  making  of  it! — that  Mildare  had 
at  one  time  been  engaged  to  marry  that " — the  Major  boggled 
horribly — "  that  uncommonly  brave  and  noble  lady,  and  had, 
in  fact,  thrown  her  over,  and  made  a  bolt  of  it  with  the  wife 
of  his  Regimental  C.O.,  Colonel  Sir  George  Hawting. 

"  South  Africa  Lady  Lucy  and  Mildare  bolted  to,"  went  on 
Bingo,  "  and  now  you  know  the  kind  of  mare's  nest  her  ladyship 
had  scratched  up.  And,"  declared  Bingo,  "  rather  than  have 
had  to  spin  this  yarn,  I'd  have  faced  a  Court-Martial  of  Inquiry 
respectin'  my  conduct  in  the  field.  For  my  wife  has  a  kind 


544  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

heart  and  a  keen  sense  of  honour,  and  rather  than  bring  harm 
upon  Miss  Mildare  that  was,  or  anyone  connected  with  her, 

she'd  have  stood  up  to  be  shot!  By  G !  "  trumpeted  Bingo, 

"  I  know  she  would !  " 

Saxham's  face  was  blue-white,  and  looked  oddly  shrunken. 
His  voice  came  in  a  rasping  croak  from  his  ashen  lips  as  he 
said : 

"  Lady  Hannah  mentioned  my  wife  to  this  man,  thinking 
that  she  might  prove  to  be  the  daughter  of  the  owner  of  the 
ring.  What  could  possibly  lead  her  to  infer  such  a  relation- 
ship?" 

"  You  must  understand  that  the  blackguard  had  given  my 
wife  details  of  Mildare's  death  at  a  farm  owned  by  a  friend  of 
his  in  Natal,  and  that  Hannah — that  miy  wife  knew  Mildare 
had  had  a  child  by  poor  little  Lucy  Hawting."  Major  Bingo 
spluttered.  "  That  was  why  she  asked  Van  Busch  outright 
whether  the  girl  with  the  nuns  at  Gueldersdorp  was — could 
be — the  same  child,  grown  up?  By  the  Living  Tinker! — I 
never  was  in  such  a  lather  in  my  life!  The  better  the  light  I 
try  to  put  the  thing  in,  the  dirtier  it  looks.  And  I'm  not  half 
through  yet,  that's  the  worst  of  it ! " 

He  mopped  and  mopped,  and  took  several  violent  turns  about 
the  room,  and  subsided  in  a  chair  at  length,  and  went  on,  wav- 
ing the  large  pink  cambric  handkerchief,  now  a  damp  rag,  in 
the  air,  at  intervals,  to  dry  it. 

"  She  says — Lady  Hannah  says — that  the  eagerness  and  curi- 
osity with  which  the  brute  snapped  up  the  hint  she'd  never  meant 
to  drop,  warned  her  to  shunt  him  off  on  another  line,  and  give 
no  more  information.  They  got  on  money  matters ;  and,  seeing 
plain  how  she'd  been  bilked,  my  wife  gave  the  welsher  a  bit  of 
her  mind,  and  he  showed  his  teeth  in  a  way  that  meant  Mur- 
der. Just  in  time — before  he  could  wring  her  neck  round — 
and  he'd  started  in  to  do  it,  you  understand — Bronnckers  came 
stormin'  and  bullyin'  in,  to  tell  the  prisoner  she  was  Exchanged, 
and  would  be  sent  to  Gueldersdorp.  .  .  .  They  packed  her 
back  that  very  day.  .  .  .  And  not  a  week  after,  the  pretended 
runner  came  in  from  Diamond  Town  with  the  bogus  letter 
from  a  Mrs.  Casey.  ..." 

Saxham  had  thought.    He  said  now: 

"  This  man,  whose  name  I  must  remind  you,  you  are  with- 
holding from  me,  was  disguised  as  the  runner?  Is  that  what 
has  been  proved?  Did  Lady  Hannah  see  the  man  and  recog- 
nize him? 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  545 

Bingo  leaned  forward  to  answer,  with  his  thick  left  hand  on 
his  large  left  knee. 

"  Lady  Hannah  never  set  eyes  on  the  man  from  Diamond 
Town.  But  the  day  the  Siege  Gazette  came  out,  with  a  blither- 
ing paragraph  in  it  that  never  ought  to  have  appeared,  announ- 
cin'  " — he  coughed  and  crimsoned — "  Lord  Beauvayse's  formal 
engagement  to  Miss  Mildare,  my  wife  was  rung  up  at  the  Con- 
valescent Hospital  by  a  caller  who  wouldn't  say  where  he  tele- 
phoned from.  And  the  message  that  came  through — couched 
in  queer,  ambiguous,  language,  but  purportin'  to  come  from  an 
old  friend — was  a  message  for  the  young  lady  who  is  now  Mrs- 
Saxham !  " 

Saxham's  eyes  flickered  dangerously  under  their  thunderous 
brows.  He  said  not  a  word,  but  every  fibre  of  his  being  listened 
and  waited  for  what,  he  knew  was  coming.  The  Major  went 
on: 

"  My  wife  didn't  then  and  there  identify  the  voice  as  the 
man's  whose  alias  I  am  purposely  keepin'  to  myself.  She  re- 
membered the  name  that  had  been  given  her  as  that  of  the 
owner  of  the  farm  at  which  Mildare  died,  rather  more  now 
than  seventeen  years  ago,  and  which  by  rights  was  in  what's 
now  the  Orange  River  Colony,  and  not  Natal  at  all.  She 
asked  plump  and  plain:  'Are  you  So-and-So?'  There  was  no 
answer  to  the  question.  But  seven  hours  later  the  Mother- 
Superior  was  shot;  and  the  nuns  and  Miss  Mildare,  on  their 
way  to  the  Convent,  were  passed  by  a  thick-set,  bearded  man, 
who  ran  into  one  of  the  Sisters  in  his  hurry,  and  nearly  knocked 
her  down." 

"  That,"  said  Saxham,  "  has  always  been  regarded  as  a  sus- 
picious circumstance.  But  the  man  was  never  subsequently 
traced." 

"No!  Because,"  said  Bingo,  "the  runner  from  Diamond 
Town  evaporated  that  night.  The  Chief  had  the  circumstance 
kept  dark,  having  his  own  impressions.  My  wife  might  have 
added  to  those  if  she  had  been  fit  enough.  But  the  shock  of 
the  murder,  accompanied  with  her  own  secret  conviction  that, 
in  some  indirect  way  she'd  helped  to  set  a  malicious,  lurking, 
watchful,  dangerous  Force  of  some  kind  working  against  your 
wife — when  she  dropped  that  hint  I've  told  you  of — bowled 
her  over  with  a  nervous  fever." 

"  I  remember,"  said  Saxham,  who  had  been  called  in. 

"  Consequently,  it  wasn't  until  some  days  after  the  Relief — 
a  bare  hour  or  two  before  the  Division — Irregular  Horse  and 


546  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

Baraland  Rifles,  and  a  company  or  so  of  Civilian  Johnnies  that 
had  made  believe  they  were  genuine  fightin'  Tommies  till  they 
couldn't  get  out  of  the  notion — marched  out  of  Gueldersdorp 
for  Frostenburg,  that  her  ladyship  got  a  chance  of  makin'  a 
clean  breast  to  the  Chief.  Hold  on  a  minute,  Doctor " 

For  Saxham  would  have  spoken. 

"  — The  Chief  had  had  his  own  private  opinion,  as  you  may 
suppose.  He  heard  what  my  wife  had  to  say.  As  you  may 
guess,  she'd  worked  herself  up  into  a  regular  cooker  of  remorse 
and  anxiety — told  him  she  was  ready  to  go  anywhere  and  do 
anything — he'd  only  got  to  give  her  orders,  and  all  that  sort 
of  thing!  He  charged  her  with  the  simple  but.  difficult  role  of 
holdin'  her  tongue,  and  keepin'  her  oar  out,  and  findin'  him — • 
if  by  good  luck  she'd  got  it  by  her — a  scrap  of  Van — of  the 
handwritin'  of  the  clever  rogue  who'd  played  at  bein'  a  Secret 
Intelligence  Agent,  and  waltzed  with  her  five  hundred  pounds, 
which,  as  it  chanced,  she  was  able  to  supply.  And  the  fist  of 
the  man  which  swindled  her,  and  the  writin'  of  Mrs.  Casey 
who'd  sent  the  bogus  letter  per  runner  from  Diamond  Town  to 
a  husband  who  didn't  exist,  tallied  to  an  upstroke  and  the 
crossin'of  a'*'!" 

"  Is  it  beyond  doubt  that  the  letter  from  the  supposed  Mrs. 
Casey  was  not  a  genuine  communication  ?  "  Saxham  asked. 

"  Beyond  doubt.  As  a  fact,  the  envelope  of  the  Casey  letter 
had  got  a  sheet  of  blank  paper  inside.  Another  odd  fact  brought 
to  light  was  that  the  person  who  communicated  with  my  wife 
at  the  Convalescent  Hospital  about  half-past  twelve  on  the  day 
of  the  murder,  rang  her  up  on  the  telephone  belongin'  to  the 
orderly-room  at  the  Headquarters  of  the  Baraland  Rifles.  We 
had  up  the  orderly,  and  after  some  solid  lyin',  he  owned  that 
the  man  from  Diamond  Town  had  bribed  him  with  'baccy  to 
let  him  put  a  message  through.  And  that's  another  link  in  the 
evidence,  I  take  it?"  said  Major  Bingo. 

"  Undoubtedly." 

'  There's  not  much  more  to  tell,  except,"  said  Bingo,  "  that 
the  first,  march  of  the  Division  on  its  route  to  Frostenburg  led 
past  a  Border  farm  called  Haargrond  Plaats.  It  looked  de- 
serted and  half-ruined,  with  only  a  slipshod  woman  and  a 
coloured  man  in  charge ;  but  something  was  known  of  what  had 
gone  on  there,  and  might  be  going  on  still,  and  the  Boers  are 
clever  stage-managers,  and  it  don't,  do  to  trust  to  appearances. 
So  the  Chief  detached  a  party  with  dynamite  cartridges  and 
express  orders  to  make  the  ruin  real.  Our  men  searched  the 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  547 

place  thoroughly  before  they  blew  it  up;  and  hidden  in  a  dis- 
used chimney — a  solid  bit  of  old  Dutch  masonry  big  enough  to 
accommodate  a  baker's  dozen  of  sweeps — were  a  few  things 
calculated  to  facilitate  that  search  for  the  needle  in  the  hay- 
stack— you  understand?  Disguises  of  various  kinds — a  suit  of 
clothes  lined  with  chamois-leather  bags  for  gold-smugglin' — • 
a  good  deal  of  the  raw  stuff  itself,  scattered  all  over  the  shop 
by  the  blow  up — and  in  a  rusty  cashbox  a  diary  or  private 
ledger,  written  in  a  clumsy  kind  of  thieves'  cipher,  impossible  to 
make  out,  but  with  the  name  written  on  it  of  the  identical  man 
my  wife  suspected  and  the  Chief  believed  to  be  the  murderer 
of  Miss  Mildare's  adopted  mother.  And  that's  what  you  may 
call  the  Clue  Direct,  Saxham,  I  rather  fancy?  " 

Major  Bingo  Wrynche  leaned  back  with  an  air  of  some 
finality,  and  with  some  little  difficulty  extracted  a  biggish  square 
envelope  from  the  left  inner  pocket,  of  the  accurately-fitting 
frock-coat.  He  lightly  placed  the  envelope  upon  the  blotter 
before  Saxham,  reached  out  and  took  the  shiny  top-hat  off  the 
writing-table,  fitted  it  with  peculiar  care  on  his  pinkish, 
sandy,  close-cropped  head,  and  said,  looking  at  Saxham  with  a 
pleasant  smile: 

"  Perhaps  you  wouldn't  mind  throwin'  your  eye  over  the 
contents  of  that  envelope?  There  are  three  photographs  of 
handwritin'  inside,  marked  on  the  backs  respectively."  He 
waited  for  Saxham  to  take  the  enclosures  from  the  big  envelope, 
rubbing  the  toe  of  his  varnished  patent-leather  boot  up  and 
down  in  the  grey  smear  of  burned  paper-ash  that  was  on  the 
Turkey  carpet  near  the  writing-table.  His  large  face  was  as 
bland  and  expressionless  as  the  face  of  the  grandfather-clock 
in  the  Sheraton  case  that  ticked  against  the  wainscot  behind 
him.  But  he  did  not  lose  a  twitch  of  Saxham's  nostril  or  a> 
movement  of  his  eye,  as  he  advised: 

"  Take  them  in  numerical  sequence.  No  I  is  the  photo-! 
graphed  facsimile  of  the  cover  of  the  bogus  letter  to  Mr.  Casey. 
No.  2  " — the  speaker  lightly  touched  it  with  a  large  round 
finger-tip — "  that's  the  replica — also  photographed — of  a  card 
the  man  we're  after  wrote  on  and  gave  to  Lady  Hannah,  in 
case  she  found  herself  inclined  to  invest  a  hundred  or  so  in  the 
kind  of  wares  he  professed  to  supply.  Photo  No.  3  is  a  repro- 
duction of  an  autograph  and  address  that's  written  on  the  inside 
cover  of  the  ledger — posted  up  in  cipher — that  was  in  the  cash- 
box  found  at  Haargrond  Plaats."  He  waited,  screwing  pain- 
fully at  the  stiff,  waxed  ends  of  the  scrubby  moustache. 


548  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

Saxham  took  the  photographs  in  their  order.  The  envelope 
of  the  bogus  letter  brought  by  the  supposed  runner  from  Dia- 
mond Town  had  been  addressed  in  a  big  bold  black  round- 
hand  with  curiously  malformed  capitals,  to 

"  MR.  BARNEY  CASEY, 

"  Gueldersdorp. 
"  Care  of  the  Officer  Commanding  H.M.  Forces." 

" — Don't  put  it  back  in  the  envelope,"  said  Major  Bingo. 
"  Compare  the  writin'  with  No.  2." 

No.  2  was  the  photograph  of  an  oblong  card.  On  it  was 
written  in  ink,  in  the  same  bold  hand : 

"MR.  HENDRYK  VAN  BUSCH, 

"  Transport  Agent, 
C|o  Mr.  W.  Bough, 

"  Haargrond  Plaats, 

"  Near  Matambani, 

"  Transvaal." 


LXIV 

THERE  was  a  silence  in  the  consulting-room,  only  broken  by 
street  noises  filtered  thin  by  walls  and  curtains,  and  the  ticking 
of  the  Sheraton  grandfather  clock,  and  the  breathing  of 
two  people.  Saxham  glanced  at.  Major  Bingo  with  eyes  that 
seemed  to  have  been  bleached  of  colour,  and  laid  the  second 
caligraphic  specimen  beside  the  first,  and  took  up  No.  3,  and 
read  the  large  flourishing  signature: 

"W.  BOUGH, 

"  Free  State  Hotel, 

"  50  m.   from  Driepoort, 
"Orange   Free    State." 

After  that  the  silence  was  intense.  The  clock  ticked,  and 
the  faint,  far-off  street  noises  came  through  the  intervening 
screens,  but  only  one  of  the  men  in  the  room  seemed  to  be 
breathing.  At  last  Saxham's  grey  lips  moved.  He  said  in 
a  horrible  clicking  whisper: 

"Van  Busch  and  Bough  are — one?" 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  549 

Major  Wrynche's  large  face  wagged  in  the  affirmative.  But 
it  was  as  expressionless  as  the  grandfather  clock's. 

"  One  man ! — and  that's  what  I  may  call  the  pith  of  my  ver- 
bal Despatch  for  you !  " 

Saxham  said  with  hard  composure: 

"  Van  Busch  is  a  Dutch  surname  that  is  common  in  South 
Africa.  With  the  name  of  Bough,  as  the  Chief  is  aware,  I 
have — associations.  It  was,  in  fact,  one  of  the  many  aliases 
used  by  the  witness  for  Regina  in  an  Old  Bailey  case  in  which 
I  was  concerned  nearly  seven  years  ago." 

The  Major  nodded  once  more,  and  said  with  brevity: 

"  Same  man !  " 

Saxham  seemed  always  to  have  known  that  the  man  was 
the  same  man.  The  tense  muscles  of  his  face  told  nothing. 
Bingo  added: 

"  — But  the  wrong  and  injury  done  to  you  by  Bough  amount 
to  little  compared  with  the  wrong  and  injury  inflicted  upon 
Mrs.  Saxham.  That Good  Lord!  what  is  it?  " 

For  Saxham,  with  a  madman's  face,  had  leapt  to  his  feet, 
knocking  over  his  chair,  and  stuttered  with  foam  on  his  blue 
lips: 

"What  wrong?  What  injury?  What. — what  are  you 
hinting  at? " 

"Hinting!"  The  astonishment  in  the  Major's  round, 
light-blue  eyes  was  so  palpably  genuine  that  the  crazy  flame 
died  out  of  the  Doctor's,  and  his  clenched  hand  dropped.  "  I 
didn't  hint.  I  referred  to  the  murder  of  your  wife's  adopted 
mother  by  this  Bough,  or  Van  Busch,  that's  all." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  Major !  "  Saxham  picked  up  his  chair 
and  sat  down  in  it,  inwardly  cursing  his  lack  of  self-control. 
"  My  nerves  have  been  giving  trouble  of  late." 

Going  by  the  evidence  of  the  haggard  face  and  fever-bright 
eyes,  the  Doctor  looked  like  that — uncommonly  like  that! 
And  the  big  Major,  remembering  Alderman  Brooker's  revela- 
tion, wondered,  as  he  screwed  at  the  stiff,  blunt  end  of  his 
sandy  moustache,  whether  Saxham  might  not  have  reverted 
to  the  old  vice?  "  Bad  for  the  girl  he's  married  if  he  has,"  he 
thought,  even  as  he  said : 

"  Overworked.  Get  away  for  a  bit.  Nothin'  like  relievin' 
the  tension,  don't  you  know?  Norway  in  June,  or  the  Higher 
Austrian  Tyrol.  Make  up  your  mind  and  go ! " 

"  I  have  made  up  my  mind,"  Saxham  answered,  smiling 
queerly,  as  he  remembered  the  little  phial  with  the  yellow 


550  ONE   BRAVER   THINQ 

label  that  lay  beside  the  whisky-flask  in  the  drawer  beneath 
his  hand.  "  I  shall  go  very  soon  now !  " 

"But  not  immediately?" 

"Not  immediately."  There  was  something  strange,  almost 
exalted,  in  the  look  that  accompanied  the  words.  Saxham 
'added:  "If  you  could  give  me  an  approximate  date  as  re- 
'gards  that  rinding  of  that — needle  in  the  haystack  of  South 
Africa,  it  would — facilitate  my  departure  more  than  you  can 
guess." 

"  Would  it,  by  George ! "  Bingo  slipped  the  thumb  and 
forefinger  of  the  useful  hand  into  his  waistcoat-pocket.  Some- 
thing sparkled  in  the  big  pink  palm  he  extended  to  Saxham — 
something  sparkled,  and  spurted  white  and  green  and  scarlet 
points  of  fire  from  a  myriad  of  facets.  The  something  was  an 
oval  miniature  on  ivory.  A  slender  gold  chain,  broken,  dangled 
from  its  enamelled  bow.  From  within  a  rim  of  brilliants  the 
lovely,  wistful  face  of  a  young,  refined,  high-bred  woman 
looked  out,  and  with  all  his  iron  self-control  Saxham  could 
not  restrain  a  sudden  movement  and  a  stifled  exclamation  of 
mingled  anger  and  surprise. 

For  at  the  first  glance  the  face  was  Lynette's. 

With  a  dull  roaring  of  the  blood  in  his  ears  and  an  un- 
speakable rage  and  horror  seething  in  him,  he  took  the  por- 
trait from  the  Major's  palm,  and  held  it  with  a  steady  palm, 
in  a  favourable  light. 

Marvellously  like,  but  not  Lynette's  face! 

The  eyes  were  larger,  rounder,  and  of  gentle  blue-grey,  the 
squirrel-coloured  hair  of  a  brighter  shade,  the  sensitive  mouth 
isensuous  as  well,  the  little  chin  pointed.  She  might  have  been 
ia  few  years  under  thirty ;  the  arrangement  of  the  hair,  the  cut 
iof  the  bodice,  might  have  indicated  the  height  of  the  latest  fash- 
lion — say,  twenty-two  or  three  years  back.  Some  delicately 
pne  inscription  was  upon  the  dull  gold  of  the  inner  rim  of  the 
.miniature  frame,  within  the  diamonds  that  surrounded  it. 
Saxham  deciphered:  "Lucy,  to  Richard  Mildare.  For  ever! 
1879." 

The  dull,  dark  crimson  that  had  stained  the  Dop  Doctor's 
opaque  skin  had  given  place  to  pallor.  His  face  was  sharp  and 
thin,  and  of  waxen  whiteness,  like  the  face  of  one  newly  dead. 
His  blue  eyes  burned  ominously  in  their  caves  under  the  heavy 
bar  of  meeting  black  eyebrows.  His  voice  was  very  quiet  as 
he  asked:  "  How  did  you  come  by  this?  " 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  551 

"  It  dropped  down  out  of  the  sky,"  said  Major  Bingo 
measuredly,  "with  the  bits  of  evidence  I've  told  you  of,  and 
a  few  others,  when  the  big  stone  chimney  at  Haargrond  Plaats 
blew  up  with  a  thunderin'  roar.  The  other  bits  of  evidence 
were  bits  of  a  man — two  men  you  might  call  him.  And,  by 
the  Living  Tinker,  considerin'  how  he  was  mixed  up  with  the 
rest  of  the  rubbish,  he  might  have  been  half  a  dozen  instead  of 
Bough  Van  Busch." 

"He  had  this  upon  him?  He — wore  it  round  his  neck?" 
Saxham  asked  the  question  in  a  grating  whisper,  dropping  the 
clenched  hand  that  held  the  diamond-set  miniature  upon  the 
arm  of  his  chair. 

"  I  should  think  it  probable  he  did,"  said  Bingo  placidly, 
"  when  he  had  a  neck  to  boast  of."  He  added,  as  he  got  up 
to  take  his  leave :  "  The  thing  has  been  carefully  cleaned. 
The  chain  is  broken,  and  the  crystal  cracked  in  one  place,  but 
otherwise  it  has  come  of?  wonderfully.  Perhaps  you'd  hand 
it  over  to — anybody  it  belongs  to?  Hope  I  haven't  mulled 
that  appointment  in  the  City.  Remember  me  to  Mrs.  Sax- 
ham.  Thanks  frightfully.  So  long !  " 


IN  the  days  that  followed  Saxham  had  a  letter,  written  by  a 
man  with  whom  he  had  been  fairly  intimate  at  Gueldersdorp 
during  the  strenuous  days  of  the  Siege — a  man  who  would  un- 
doubtedly not.  have  lived  to  go  through  those  days  but  for  the 
Dop  Doctor.  It  was  rather  an  incoherent  letter,  written  by  an 
unsteady  hand. 

Saxham  tore  it  up  and  dropped  it  into  the  waste-paper 
basket  with  a  contemptuous  shrug.  But  he  had  made  a  mental 
note  of  the  address,  and  drove  there  that  afternoon. 

The  Doctor's  motor-brougham  stopped  at  the  door  of  the 
grimy  stucco  Clergy-House  that  is  attached  to  St.  Margaret's 
in  Wendish  Street,  West.  Saxham  rang  a  loud  bell,  that 
sent  iron  echoes  pealing  down  flagged  passages,  and  brought  a 
little  bonneted  woman  in  rusty  black  to  answer  the  door  and 
the  Doctor's  query  whether  Mr.  Julius  Fraithorn  was  at  home 
and  able  to  receive  a  visitor? 

The  little  woman,  who  had  a  nose  like  a  preserved  cherry, 
and  wore  one  eyebrow  several  inches  higher  than  the  other, 
shook  her  rusty  crape-trimmed  bonnet  discouragingly,  as  she 
informed  Saxham  in  a  husky  voice  strongly  flavoured  with 


552  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

cloves  that  Father  Julius  'ad  been  in  the  confessional  all  the 
morning,  it  being  the  Eve  of  the  Feast  of  the  Ascension,  and 
was  quite  worn  out.  If  there  was  anything  she  could  do,  she 
inferred,  with  quite  a  third-hand  air  of  clerical  responsibility, 
she  would  be  happy  to  oblige  the  gentleman. 

"  I  shall  be  obliged  by  your  conveying  my  card  to  Mr. 
Fraithorn.  You  see  that  I  am  a  doctor,"  said  Saxham,  with 
unsmiling  gravity,  "  and  not  an  ordinary  caller  on  business  con- 
nected with  religion." 

The  little  cherry-nosed  woman  in  rusty  black  snorted  as 
/scenting  godlessness,  and  conducted  Saxham  down  a  cream- 
Kvashed,  brown  distemper-dadoed  passage,  smelling  of  kippered 
haddocks  and  incense,  to  a  sitting-room  at  the  rear.  It  was  a 
severe  apartment,  commanding  a  view  of  mews,  and  had  a  par- 
quet-patterned linoleum  on  the  floor,  and  a  washable  paper  of 
a  popular  ecclesiastical  design  suggestive  of  a  ranunculus  with 
its  hands  in  its  pockets. 

Stained  deal  bookcases  contained  Julius's  Balliol  library; 
chromo-lithographic  reproductions  of  Saints  and  Madonnas  by 
Old  Masters  hung  above.  The  Philistine  School  of  Art  was 
represented  by  a  Zoological  hearthrug;  three  Windsor  chairs 
offered  accommodation  to  the  visitor;  a  table  of  the  kitchen 
pattern  was  covered  by  a  square  of  green  baize;  and  a  slippery 
hair-cloth  sofa,  with  a  knobbly  bolster  and  a  patchwork  cush- 
ion supported  the  long,  thin  recumbent  black  figure  of  the 
Reverend  Julius  Fraithorn,  who  was  lying  down. 

"  I  have  come,"  said  Saxham,  standing  grimly  over  the 
prone  figure,  a  single  stride  having  taken  him  to  the  side  of  the 
sofa,  "  to  prescribe  for  a  man  whose  nerves  are  playing  him 
tricks.  I  have  torn  up  your  letter — the  epistle  in  which  you 
ask  me  to  afford  you  an  opportunity  of  making  an  avowal  which 
will  prove  to  what  depths  of  infamy  a  man  may  descend  at  the 
bidding  of  his  lower  nature.  Lower  nature!  If  I  am  any 
judge  of  a  man's  physical  condition,  a  lower  nature  is  what  you 
want."  He  threw  down  his  hat  and  stick  upon  the  green- 
baize-covered  table,  took  one  of  the  Windsor  chairs,  and  crashed 
it  down  beside  the  sofa,  and  planted  his  hulking  big  body  on  it, 
and  reached  out  and  captured  the  thin  wrist  of  his  victim,  who 
mustered  breath  to  stammer: 

"  There  is  nothing  whatever  the  matter  with  my  health.  I 
am  well — that  is,  bodily."  He  got  up  from  the  sofa,  and 
crossed  to  the  Zoological  hearthrug,  and  poked  the  smoky  little 
fire  burning  in  the  narrow  grate,  for  the  May  day  was  wet 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  553 

and  chilly.  "  I  shall  be  better,  mentally,"  he  said,  with  an 
effort,  looking  over  his  shoulder  towards  Saxham,  "when  you 
have  heard  what  I  have  to  tell."  He  rose  up,  and  turned 
round,  his  thin  face  flaming.  "  Mind,  I'm  not  to  be  gagged 
by  your  not  wanting  to,"  for  Saxham  had  impatiently  waved 
his  hand.  "  Hear  you  shall,  and  must!  " 

He  ground  his  boot-heel  into  the  orange-yellow  lion  that 
couched  on  a  field  of  aniline  green  hearthrug,  and  drove  his 
hands  down  deep  into  his  pockets,  and  the  painful  scarlet  surged 
over  the  rim  of  his  Roman  collar  and  dyed  his  thin,  sensitive, 
beautiful  face  and  high,  white  forehead  to  the  roots  of  his  dark, 
curling  hair. 

"  Perhaps  you  may  recall  an  oath  I  swore  at  your  instigation 
one  day  in  your  room  at  the  Hospital  at  Gueldersdorp?  " 

"Yes — no!  What  does  it  matter?"  said  Saxham  thickly, 
with  his  angry,  brooding  eyes  upon  the  floor. 

"  It  matters,"  said  Julius  doggedly,  "  in  the  present  case. 
I  need  hardly  tell  you  that  I  have  kept  that.  oath.  If  the  man 
had  not  been  dead,  I  might  have  ended  by  breaking  it — who 
knows?  What  I  have  to  tell  you  is  that,  some  two  months 
after  the  Relief,  when  your  engagement  to  the  lady  who  is  now 
your  wife  was  first  made  public,  I,  impelled  and  prompted  by 
a  despicable  envy  of  the  great  good-fortune  that  had  fallen — 
deservedly  fallen — to  your  lot,  I  sought  out  Miss  Mildare,  and 
told  her — something  I  had  learned  to  your  detriment,  from  a 
man  called  Brooker,  a  babbling,  worthless  creature,  a  Guelders- 
dorp tradesman  who,  on  the  strength  of  a  seat  upon  the  local 
Bench,  claimed  to  be  informed." 

Saxham's  head  turned  stiffly.  He  looked  at.  the  wall  now 
instead  of  the  floor,  and  breathed  unevenly  and  quickly.  His 
right  hand,  resting  on  the  table  near  which  he  sat,  softly  closed 
and  opened,  opened  and  closed  its  supple  muscular  fingers,  with 
a  curious,  rhythmical  movement.  He  waited  to  hear  more. 
And  Julius  groaned  out,  with  his  elbows  on  the  common  painted 
mantelshelf,  and  his  shamed  face  hidden: 

"  I  knew  that  the  man  lied — on  my  soul,  I  knew  it.  But 
the  opportunity  he  had  given  me  of  lowering  your  value  in — 
in  another's  eyes  was  too  tempting  to  resist.  The  man  had  told 
me " 

"  In  effect  that  I  was  a  confirmed  and  hopeless  drunkard," 
said  Saxham ;  "  and,  as  it  happens,  he  told  the  truth."  He 
added:  "And  what  I  was  then  I  am  now.  There  is  no 
change  in  me,  though  once  I, thought  it!" 


554  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"Saxham!  .  .  .  For  God's  sake,  Saxham!"  stuttered 
Julius.  But  Saxham,  hunching  his  great  shoulders,  and  lower- 
ing his  square,  black  head,  not  at  all  unlike  the  savage  bull  of 
Lady  Hannah  Wrynche's  apt  comparison,  went  on: 

"  It  is  a  drunken  world  we  live  in,  Parson,  for  all  our  sham 
of  abstinence  and  sobriety.  But  there  are  nice  degrees  and 
various  grades  in  our  drunkenness,  as  in  our  other  vices,  and 
the  man  who  is  a  druggard  despises  the  common  drunkard; 
and  the  inhalers  of  oxygen  look  down  with  infinite  contempt — • 
or,  more  ludicrous  still,  with  tender,  pitying  sorrow,  upon  the 
toper  and  the  slave  of  drugs.  Nothing  immoral  about  the 
tasteless,  colourless  gas,  they  think,  and  take  no  shame  in  see- 
ing the  oxygenated  greyhound  win  the  coursing-match  and  the 
oxygenated  racehorse  run  for  the  Cup.  A  year  or  so,  and  the 
transatlantic  oxygen  outfit  will  be  an  indispensable  equipment 
of  the  British  athlete.  Even  to-day  the  professional  footballer 
and  runner  and  the  swimmer  inhale  oxygen  as  a  preliminary  to 
effort,  and  bring  the  false  energy  that  is  born  of  it  to  aid  them 
in  their  trial  tests  of  strength.  .  .  .  The  man  who  climbs 
a  mountain  winds  himself  up  with  a  whiff  or  so;  the  orator 
inspired  by  oxygen  astonishes  the  House  of  Commons  or  the 
Bar.  And  the  actor,  delirious  with  oxygen,  rushes  on  the 
stage;  and  the  clergyman,  drunk  on  oxygen,  mounts  the  pulpit 
to  preach  a  Temperance  sermon.  And  the  Dop  Doctor  of 
Gueldersdorp  prescribes  palliatives  for  guinea-paying  tipplers; 
and  there  is  not  an  honest  man  to  rise  up  and  say:  '  Physician, 
heal  thyself!" 

The  Windsor  chair  creaked  under  his  heavy  figure  as  he 
got  up.  His  fierce  blue  eyes  blazed  in  their  sullen  caves  as  he 
took  his  hat  and  stick  from  the  table. 

"What  more  have  you  to  'confess'?  You  did  not  wrongi 
me.  Moralists  would  say  that  you  acted  conscientiously — 
played  the  part  of  a  true  friend  in  telling — her — what  you 
knew." 

"  Of  my  benefactor — the  man  who  had  saved  my  life !  " 
Julius  moistened  his  dry  lips.  "Your  approving  moralist 
would  be  the  devil's  advocate.  But  I  have  not  forgotten  what 
your  own  opinion  is  of  the  man  who  tries  to  enhance  his  own 
virtues  in  a  woman's  eyes  by  pointing  out  the  vices  of  a  rival. 
And,  if  you  will  believe  me,  I  was  punished  for  the  attempt. 
Her  look  of  surprise  .  .  .  the  tone  in  which  she  said,  '  Did 
he  not  save  your  life?'  that  was  enough!  .  .  .  Then  I — I 
lost  my  head,  and  told  her  that  I  loved  her — entreated  her  to 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  555 

be  my  wife,  only  to  learn  that  she  never  had — never  could " 

Julius's  thin  white  fingers  knotted  themselves  painfully  at  the 
back  of  his  stooped  head,  and  his  voice  came  in  jerks  between 
his  gritted  teeth :  "  It  was  revolting  to  her — a  girl  reared 
among  nuns  in  a  Catholic  Convent — that  a  man  calling  him- 
self a  priest  should  speak  to  her  of  love.  There  was  absolute 
horror  in  her  look  as  she  learned  the  truth."  He  groaned.  "  I 
have  never  met  her  eyes  since  that  day  without  seeing — or  im- 
agining I  saw — some  reflection  of  that  horror  in  them." 

"Why  torture  yourself  uselessly  with  imaginations?"  said 
Saxham,  not  unkindly. 

He  was  at  the  door,  upon  the  threshold  of  departure,  when 
Julius  stopped  him. 

"  One  moment.  Has — has  Mrs.  Saxham  ever  spoken  to  you 
of — this  that  I  have  told  you?" 

"  Never,"  answered  Saxham,  pausing  at  the  door. 

"One  moment  more.  Saxham,  is  it  hopeless?  Could  you 
not  by  a  desperate  effort  break  this  habit  that  may — that  must 
— inevitably  bring  misery  to  your  wife?  In  the  name  of  her 
love  for  you — in  the  names  of  the  children  that  may  be  born  of 
it " 

— "  Unless  you  want  me  to  murder  you,"  advised  Saxham, 
facing  the  passionate  emotion  of  the  younger  man  as  a  basalt 
cliff  might  oppose  a  breaking  wave,  "  you  had  better  be  silent." 

"  My  right  to  speak,"  Julius  retorted  fiercely,  "  is  better 
than  you  know.  When  I  endeavoured — unsuccessfully — to 
injure  you,  I  robbed  myself  of  my  belief  in  myself.  But  you — 
you  who  gave  me  back  my  earthly  life,  you  have  robbed  me 
of  my  faith  in  the  Life  Eternal — God.  Do  you  know  the 
effect  of  Doubt,  once  planted  in  what  was  a  faithful  soul?  It 
is  a  choking  fungus,  a  dry  rot,  a  creeping  palsy!  Since  that 
day  at  the  Hospital  at  Gueldersdorp,  when  you  said  to  me, 
'  The  Human  Will  is  even  more  omnipotent  than  the  Deity,' 
because  it  has  created  Him,  out  of  its  own  need,'  I  have  done; 
my  daily  duty  as  a  priest  to  the  numbing  burden  of  that  utter- 
ance— I  have  preached  the  Gospel  with  it  sounding  in  my  ears." 
He  wrung  his  hands,  that  were  wet  as  though  they  had  been 
dipped  in  water.  "  I  have  tended  souls  as  mechanically  as  a 
gardener  might  water  pots  in  which  there  was  nothing  but  dead 
sticks  and  dry  earth." 

"Try  to  credit  me  when  I  tell  you,"  said  Saxham,  wrung 
by  the  suffering  in  the  thin  young  face  and  in  the  beautiful 
haggard  eyes,  "  that  I  never  meant  the  harm  that  I  appear  to 


556  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

have  done.  Nor  can  I  recall  that  I  have  habitually  attacked 
your  faith,  or  for  that  matter  any  Christian  man's.  I  remember 
that  I  was  suffering,  physically  and  mentally,  upon  the  day  you 
particularly  refer  to,  when  you  came  upon  me  at  the  Hospital. 
I  had  seen  an  announcement  in  the  Siege  Gazette  that  ...  I 
dare  say  you  understand."  He  laughed  harshly.  "  As  to 
my  theory  of  the  Omnipotence  of  Human  Will,  it  is  blown  and 
exploded,  and  all  the  King's  horses  and  all  the  King's  men  will 
never  set  it  back  on  the  pedestal  it  has  toppled  from.  I  owe 
you  that  admission,  humbling  to  the  pride  that  is  left  in  me. 
Of  how  far  Will,  in  another  man,  may  carry  him  I  dare  not 
judge  or  calculate.  My  own  is  a  dead  leaf,  doomed  to  be  the 
sport  of  any  wind  that  blows." 

He  took  up  the  walking-stick  he  had  leaned  against  a  book- 
case, and  said,  pulling  his  hat  down  over  his  sombre  eyes: 

"  The  best  of  us  are  bad  in  spots,  Parson :  the  worst  of  us 
are  good  in  patches.  You  Churchmen  don't  recognize  that  fact 
sufficiently.  .  .  .  And  I  think  no  worse  of  you  for  what  you 
have  told  me.  If  I  have  anything  to  forgive — why,  it  is  for- 
given. Do  you  try,  on  the  other  hand,  to  think  leniently  of 
a  man  who  broke  your  staff  of  faith  for  you,  and  has  nothing 
of  his  own  to  lean  upon.  As  for  my  wife,  in  whose  interests 
I  know  you  to  be  honestly  solicitous,  I  will  tell  you  this  much : 
She  will  be  spared  the  '  inevitable  misery '  of  which  you  spoke 
just  now." 

"How?  Have  you  decided  to  undergo  a  cure?  I  have 
heard,"  hesitated  Julius,  "  that  these  things  are  not  always  suc- 
cessful— that  they  sometimes  fail !  " 

"  Mine  is  the  only  cure  that  never  fails,"  returned  Saxham. 

A  vision  of  the  little  blue-glass,  yellow-labelled  vial  that  held 
the  swift  dismissing  pang  floated  before  him.  He  shook  hands 
with  Julius,  and  went  upon  his  lonely  way. 


LXVI 

EVEN  the  saintly  of  this  earth  are  prone  to  rare,  occasional  dis- 
plays of  temper.  Saxham's  white  saint  had  proved  her  descent 
from  Eve  by  stamping  her  slender  foot  at  her  hulking  Doctor; 
had,  after  a  sudden  outburst  of  passionate,  unreasonable  up- 
braiding, risen  from  the  dinner-table  and  run  out  of  the  room, 
to  hide  a  petulant,  remorseful  shower  of  tears. 

Such  a  trivial  thing  had  provoked  the  outburst — merely  an 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  557 

invitation  from  Captain  and  Mrs.  Saxham,  who  were  settled 
for  the  London  summer  season  in  Eaton  Square,  for  Owen  and 
his  wife  to  spend  the  scorching  months  of  August  and  Sep- 
tember at  the  old  home,  perched  on  the  South  Dorset  cliffs, 
among  its  thrush-haunted  shrubberies  of  ilex  and  oleander  and 
rose — nothing  more. 

But  Mrs.  Owen  Saxham  had  passionately  resented  the  idea. 
Why  never  occurred  to  Saxham.  He  had  long  ago  forgiven 
and  forgotten  Mildred's  old  treachery.  If  David's  betrayal 
had  brought  him  shame  and  anguish,  it  had  borne  him  fruit  of 
joy  as  well.  And  if  the  fruit  might  never  be  gathered,  if  its 
divine  juices  might  never  solace  her  husband's  bitter  thirst,  at 
least,  while  he  lived,  it  was  his — to  look  at  and  long  for.  He 
owed  that  cruel  bliss  to  his  brother  and  that  brother's  wife. 
And  their  meeting  had  been  upon  his  side  free  of  constraint, 
unshadowed  by  the  recollection  of  what  had  once  appeared  to 
him  a  base  betrayal — a  gross,  foul,  unpardonable  wrong. 

Suppose  he  had  married  Mildred,  and  been  uneventfully 
happy  and  successful.  Then,  Saxham  told  himself,  he  would 
never  have  seen  and  known  Lynette.  She  would  never  have 
come  to  him  and  laid  in  his  the  slight  hand  whose  touch  thrilled 
him  to  such  piercing  agony  of  J7earning  for  the  little  more  that 
would  have  meant  so  much — so  much.  .  .  . 

Ah,  yes!  he  wras  even  grateful  to  Mildred.  She  had  not 
worn  well.  She  had  grown  thin  and  paasee,  and  nervous  and 
hysterical.  But  she  was  amiable,  even  demonstrative  in  her 
professions  of  admiration  and  enthusiasm  for  Owen's  wife. 
Her  regard  for  the  Doctor  was  elaborate  in  the  sisterliness  of 
its  expression  when  he  was  present,  if  in  his  absence  it  was  tem- 
pered by  a  regretful  sigh — even  by  a  reference  to  the  time : 

"  When  poor  dear  Owen  thought,  me  the  only  woman  worth, 
looking  at  in  the  whole  world.  Ah,  well!  that  is  all  over, 
long  ago,"  Mildred  would  say,  with  an  inflection  that  was 
meant  to  be  tenderly  reassuring.  And  she  would  tilt  her  still 
pretty  head  on  one  side  and  smile  with  pensive  kindness  at 
her  successor  upon  the  throne  of  poor  dear  Owen's  heart. 

These  gentle,  retrospective  references  were  never  made  in 
the  Doctor's  hearing.  With  truly  feminine  tact  they  were  re- 
served for  Mrs.  Owen's  delectation.  And  possibly  they  might 
have  rankled  in  those  pretty  shell-like  ears,  if  then  owner  had 
loved  Saxham. 

But  Saxham  knew  that  she  did  not,  had  even  ceased  to 
wish  that  the  miracle  might  be  wrought.  Brainy  men  can  be 


558  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

very  dense.  When  she  stamped  her  foot  and  cried,  "  I  decline 
to  accept  Mrs.  Saxham's  invitation,  either  with  you  or  without 
you.  I  wonder  that  you  should  dream  of  asking  me  to!  If 
you  can  forget  how  hideously  she  and  your  brother  have 
treated  you,  I  cannot!  I  loath  treachery!  I  abominate  in- 
gratitude and  deceit !  And  I  hate  her — and  I  shall  not  go !  " 

Saxham  opened  his  eyes,  as  well  he  might.  He  had  never 
before  seen  his  wife  otherwise  than  gentle  and  submissive.  He 
found  his  own  bitter  explanation  of  the  sudden  storm  that  had 
burst  among  the  debris  of  dessert  on  the  Harley  Street  dinner- 
table.  His  square  pale  face  grew  more  Rhadamanthine  than 
ever,  and  the  glass  he  had  been  filling  with  port  overflowed 
unnoticed  on  the  cloth.  But  he  kept  the  mask  of  set  composure 
before  his  agony  of  remorse.  Then  the  frou-frou  of  light 
silken  draperies  passed  over  the  soft  carpet.  The  door  opened 
and  shut  with  a  slam.  Lynette  had  left  the  room.  As  Sax- 
ham  sat  alone,  a  heavy,  brooding  figure,  mechanically  sipping 
at  his  port,  and  staring  at  the  empty  place  opposite,  where  the 
over-set  flower-glass  and  the  crookedly  pushed-back  chair,  and 
the  serviette  that  made  a  white  streak  on  the  dark  crimson 
carpet,  marked  the  haste  and  emotion  of  her  departure,  he  said 
to  himself  tha*-  the  West  End  upholsterer  who  had  the  contract 
for  refurnishing  Plas  Bendigaid  must  be  warned  to  complete 
his  work  without  delay.  .  .  . 

For  Plas  Bendigaid,  the  solid,  stone-built  grange  that  had 
been  a  convent  in  the  fifteenth  century,  and  probably  long  be- 
fore, the  South  Welsh  home  of  his  mother's  girlhood,  perched 
in  the  shadow  of  Herion  Castle  upon  a  wide  shelf  of  the  head- 
land that  commands  the  treacherous  shoals  and  snowy  shell- 
strewn  sands  and  wild  tumbling  waters  of  Nantmadoc  Bay 
.  .  .  Plas  Bendigaid,  with  that  hoarded,  invested  money,  was 
to  be  Saxham's  bequest  to  his  young  widow. 

Everything  that  loving  care  and  forethought  could  plan  had 
already  been  done  to  make  the  old  home  pleasant  and  charm- 
ing. Nothing  was  needed  but  the  upholsterer's  finishing 
touches.  Saxham  had  planned  that  she  should  be  there  when 
he  wiped  out  the  shame  of  failure  by  keeping  that  promise 
made  in  the  Cemetery  at  Gueldersdorp,  little  more  than  a  year 
before. 

He  had  dways  meant  to  keep  ft,  but  not  when  the  north- 
east gales  of  winter  and  spring  should  be  sweeping  over  the 
mountain-passes  and  lashing  the  waves  to  madness;  not  when 
the  ceaseless  scurry  of  hunted  clouds  should  hare  piled  the 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  559 

south-west  horizon  with  scowling  blue-black  ramparts,  topped 
by  awful  towers,  themselves  belittled  by  stupendous  peaks 
built  of  intangible  vapours,  and  reproducing  with  added 
grandeur  and  terror  the  soaring  peaks  and  awful  vales  and 
appalling  precipices  of  snow-helmed  Frore  and  her  daughters. 

When  the  promise  of  Summer  should  have  been  fulfilled  in 
warmth  and  colour  and  blossom  and  sweetness,  Saxham  would 
keep  his  promise.  When  the  huge  stones  that  the  hands  of 
men  who  returned  to  dust  cycles  of  centuries  ago  hauled  up 
with  the  twisted  hide-rope  and  the  groaning  crane,  to  rear 
with  them  upon  the  jut  of  the  rugged  headland  two  hundred 
feet  above  the  waves  that  now  break  a  mile  away — the  Lonely 
Tower,  now  merged  in  the  huge  dilapidated  Edwardian  keep 
that  broods  over  Herion — when  those  blocks  of  cyclopaean 
masonry  should  be  tufted  with  the  golden  wallflower  and  the 
perfumed  wild  geranium,  and  starred  with  the  delicate  blossom 
of  the  lavender  scabious  and  the  wild  marguerite,  then  the 
little  blue  bottle  that  stood  in  the  deep  table-drawer  near  the 
big  whisky-flask  should  come  into  use. 

When  the  vast  pale  sweep  of  the  sandy  dunes  should  be  cov- 
ered for  leagues  by  the  perfumed  cloth  of  gold  spread  by  the 
broom  and  the  furze;  when  the  innumerable  little  yellow  dwarf 
roses  should  blossom  on  their  prickly  bushes,  thrusting  pertly 
through  the  powdery  white  sand,  and  every  hollow  and  hillock 
should  be  gay  with  the  star  convolvulus  and  the  flaunting  scar- 
let poppies — then  Death  should  come,  borne  on  winged  feet, 
and  bearing  the  sword  of  keenness,  to  sever  the  iron  bonds 
of  Andromeda  chained  to  the  rock.  And  here  was  Summer, 
knocking  at  the  door. 

Lynette  did  not  reappear.  He  did  not  seek  her  out  and 
ask  the  reason  of  her  strange  display  of  emotion.  Only  a  hus- 
.band  could  do  that  who  had  the  right  t.o  take  her  in  his  arms 
and  kiss  the  last  remaining  traces  of  her  tears  away.  Saxham 
went  to  his  consulting-room,  and  while  all  the  clocks  of  Lon- 
don made  time,  and  the  moon  veered  southward,  and  the  stars 
rose  and  set,  he  toiled  over  his  notes  and  case-books  in  the  bril- 
liant circle  cast  by  the  shaded  electric  lamp  upon  his  writing- 
table;  and  as  he  wrought,  the  tide  in  the  big  whisky-flask  in 
the  table-drawer  ebbed  low. 

Hours  hence  he  laid  down  his  pen.  The  flask  had  long  been 
emptied ;  the  alcohol-flare  was  dying  out  in  the  grey  chambers 
of  his  brain.  Weariness  of  life  weighed  on  him  like  a  leaden 
panoply.  He  had  almost  stretched  his  hand  to  take  the  lit.tle 


560  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

blue-glass  vial  that  sat  waiting,  waiting  in  the  deep  table- 
drawer  beside  the  drained  flask  before  sleep  overcame  him. 
His  head  sank  against  the  chair-back.  His  was  a  sudden,  heavy 
lapsing  into  forgetfulness,  unmarred  by  dreams. 

Time  sped.  The  silver  table-clock,  the  clock  upon  the 
(mantelshelf,  and  the  grandfather  clock  in  the  corner,  ran  a  race 
(with  the  chronometer  in  the  pocket  of  the  sleeping  man.  The 
brilliant  unwavering  circle  of  electric  light  did  not  reach  the 
face  of  the  Dop  Doctor.  It  bathed  his  hands,  that  hung  lax 
over  the  arms  of  the  Sheraton  chair,  and  tipped  his  lifted  chin, 
leaving  the  strong  brow  and  closed  eyes  in  shadow.  But  as 
the  pale  glimmer  of  dawn  began  to  outline  the  edges  of  the 
blinds,  and  stretched  at  length  a  broad,  pointing  finger  across 
the  quiet  room,  the  sleeping  face  showed  greyish  pale  and  lumi- 
nous as  a  drawing  by  Whistler  in  silver-point. 

The  dawn  had  not  rested  on  it  long  before  there  came  a 
knock  upon  the  panel  of  the  consulting-room  door.  It  was  so 
faint  and  diffident  a  knock,  no  wonder  it  passed  unheeded. 
Then  the  door  opened  timidly,  and  a  slender  figure  in  pale  flow- 
ing draperies  of  creamy  embroidered  cashmere  stole  upon  small, 
noiseless,  slippered  feet  over  the  thick  Turkey  carpet. 

It  was  Lynette.  She  had  risen  from  her  bed,  and  looked  out 
from  the  landing  into  the  hall  below,  and,  seeing  the  light  of 
the  unextinguished  lamp  shining  under  the  lintel  of  the  con- 
sulting-room door,  had  stolen  down  to  ask  the  Doctor's  pardon. 
Why  had  she  behaved  so  badly?  She  could  not  explain. 
Only  she  was  sorry.  She  must  tell  Owen  so.  His  name  was 
upon  her  lips,  when  she  saw  the  Dop  Doctor  sleeping  in  his 
ichair. 

Breathlessly  silent,  she  crossed  the  room  to  his  side.  And 
then — it  was  to  her  as  though  she  looked  upon  her  husband's 
face  for  the  first  time. 

There  was  no  stain  of  his  secret  excess  upon  it — no  bloat- 
ing of  the  features.  You  would  have  said  this  was  a  sane  and 
strong  and  temperate  man,  upon  whom  the  mighty  brother  of 
all-conquering  Death  has  come,  like  one  armed,  and  overthrown 
in  the  heat  and  stress  of  the  life-battle.  Only  the  sorrow  of  a 
suffering  soul  was  written  as  deeply  on  that  pale  mask  of 
human  flesh  as  though  the  sculptor-slaves  of  a  Pharaoh,  dead 
seven  thousand  years  agone,  had  cut  it  with  tools  of  unknown, 
resistless  temper  in  the  diamond-hard  Egyptian  granite. 

He  breathed  deeply  and  evenly,  and  not  a  muscle  twitched 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  561 

as  Lynette  bent  over  and  looked  at  him.  A  mass  of  her  red- 
brown  hair,  heavy  with  the  weight  of  its  own  glossy  luxuriance, 
slipped  from  her  half-bared  bosom  as  she  leaned  over  him,  and 
fell  upon  his  breast.  A  sudden  blush  burned  over  her  as  it 
fell.  He  never  stirred.  But  as  though  the  rod  of  Moses  had 
touched  the  rock  of  Cades,  one  slow  tear  oozed  from  between 
Saxham's  black-fringed,  close-sealed  eyelids,  and  hung  there,  a 
burnished,  trembling  point  of  steely  light.  And  the  deep,  still, 
manly  anguish  of  his  face  cried  out  to  the  reawakening  woman- 
hood in  Lynette,  and  a  strange,  new,  overwhelming  emotion 
seized  and  shook  her  as  a  stream  of  white  and  liquid  fire  seemed 
to  pass  into  her  veins  and  mingle  with  her  blood. 

She  began  to  understand,  as  she  pored,  with  beating  heart,  and 
bated  breath,  upon  the  living  page  before  her  eyes. 

In  its  reticence  and  lonely  strength  of  endurance,  that  face 
of  Saxham's  pleaded  with  her.  In  its  stern  acceptance  of 
suffering  and  disappointment  for  Saxham,  in  its  rugged  con- 
frontation of  the  inevitable,  in  its  resolute  long-suffering  and 
grim  patience,  in  its  silent  abnegation  of  any  claim  upon  her 
gratitude  or  any  right  to  demand  her  tenderness,  the  face  was 
more  than  eloquent  to-night.  In  the  pride  that  would  never 
stoop  to  beg  for  pity — would  rather  die  hungered  than  accept 
one  crumb  of  grudged  and  measured  love;  in  its  secret,  in- 
scrutable, unyielding  loyalty  to  that  promise  given  to  a  dead 
man ;  in  the  nobility  of  its  refusal  to  shine  brighter  in  its  faith 
and  truth  and  chivalry  by  the  revelation  of  that  other  man's 
mean  baseness;  in  its  almost  paternal  solicitude;  in  its  agony  of 
love  for  her,  insensible  and  careless ;  in  the  sick  despair  that  had 
given  up  and  left  off  hoping;  even  in  the  pride  that  had — or  so 
it  seemed  to  her — asserted  itself  at  the  last,  and  said,  "  I  have 
left  off  crying  for  the  moon;  I  wish  for  your  love  no  longer!  " 
— it  pleaded — pleaded.  .  .  .  Words  struggled  for  answering 
utterance  in  her,  but  none  came.  .  .  .  She  leaned  nearer, 
drawn  by  an  irresistible  fascination,  and  laid  her  lips  lightly 
upon  the  broad  white  forehead,  with  the  bar  of  black  meeting 
eyebrow  smudged  across  it,  and  then,  with  a  sudden  leap  and 
thrill,  she  knew.  .  .  . 

All  that  had  been  in  the  past  went  for  nothing.  Only  this 
man  mattered  who  sat  sleeping  in  the  chair.  How  easy  to 
awaken  him  with  a  touch,  and  tell  him  all!  She  dared  not, 
though  she  longed  to. 

He  was  her  master  as  well  as  her  mate.  When  he  had  said 
to  her  that  he  had  ceased  to  care,  his  eyes  had  given  his  words 


562  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

the  lie.  He  had  looked  at  her.  .  .  .  She  shivered  deliciously 
at  the  recollection  of  that  look.  If  he  were  to  open  those  stern, 
ardent  eyes  now,  he  would  know  her  his.  His — all  his,  to 
deal  with  as  he  chose.  .  .  .  His  alone. 

If  Saxham  had  awakened  then.  .  .  .  But  he  slept  on.  She 
did  not  dare  to  kiss  that  broad  white  buckler  of  his  forehead 
again.  She  kissed  the  sleeve  of  his  coat  instead,  and,  scared  by 
a  sudden  sigh  and  movement  of  one  of  the  hands  that  hung  over 
the  chair-arms,  gathered  her  draperies  around  her,  and  stole 
as  noiselessly  as  a  pale  sunbeam  out.  of  the  room. 


LXVIII 

IT  was  barely  five  o'clock,  and  the  balmiest  summer  day  at 
Herion  is  wont  to  waken,  like  a  spoilt  child,  in  a  bad  temper  of 
angry  wind  and  lashing  rain.  Lynette,  who  had  risen  from 
her  bed  and  thrown  her  dressing-gown  about  her,  to  kneel  on 
the  broad  window-seat  and  look  out.  upon  this  strange  new 
world,  shivered,  standing  barefoot  on  the  mossy  carpet.  Then 
she  looked  round  the  room,  and  smiled  with  delight.  For  she 
had  found  it,  upon  her  arrival  of  the  previous  night,  to  present 
down  to  the  smallest  detail  a  replica  of  her  bedroom  at  Harley 
Street,  with  this  notable  difference — that  on  the  wall  facing 
the  bed-head  hung  a  fine  copy  of  a  Millais  portrait  that  was  one 
of  the  treasures  of  Bawne  House.  Lady  Bridget-Mary,  in  the 
glory  of  her  beautiful  youth,  shone  from  the  canvas  splendid  as 
a  star. 

How  kind,  how  kind  of  Owen !  .  .  .  Her  eyes  filled  as  she 
jgazed,  comparing  the  glowing,  radiant  face  upon  the  canvas 
(with  the  enlarged  photograph  of  the  Mother  in  her  habit  that 
!stood  in  an  ebony  and  silver  frame  upon  a  little  table  beside  the 
bed.  A  worn  "  Garden  of  the  Soul "  lay  near,  and  the 
"  Imitation "  of  inspired  A  Kempis.  Both  had  been  the 
Mother's  gifts.  The  Breviary  and  the  Little  Office  of  Our 
Lady  had  belonged  to  the  dead.  Lynette  had  brought  these 
treasured  possessions  with  her  from  Harley  Street,  leaving  the 
ivory  crucifix  hanging  in  its  place  above  the  vacant  pillow.  So 
many  sleepless  nights  she  had  known  of  late  upon  that  pillow 
that  there  were  faint  bluish-shaded  hollows  under  the  beautiful 
eyes,  and  wistful  lines  about  the  mouth. 

Since  the  revelation  made  to  her  by  her  own  heart,  when 
the  heavy  tress  of  hair  dropped  from  her  bosom  upon  the  un- 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  563 

conscious  breast  above  which  she  bent,  an  insurmountable  wall 
of  diffidence  and  shyness  upon  her  side,  and  a  stern,  self-con- 
centrated isolation  on  her  husband's,  had  risen  up  between 
them,  dwarfing  the  barrier  that  was  already  there. 

His  writing-table  lamp  had  burned  through  the  nights,  but 
she  had  never  ventured  upon  another  stolen  visit  to  Saxham's 
consulting-room.  The  memory  of  that  kiss  she  had  put  upon 
the  velvety  smooth  space  above  the  broad  meeting  eyebrows 
stung  in  her  like  a  sense  of  guilt,  and  yet  it  had  its  sweetness. 
She  had  claimed  her  right.  The  man  was  hers,  though  she 
might  never  be  his.  .  .  .  To  know  it  was  to  realize  at  once 
her  riches  and  her  poverty. 

Out  of  a  vague  yearning  and  a  formless,  nameless  pain  had 
come  to  her  the  knowledge  of  the  true  herb  needed  for  her  heal- 
ing. The  unsated  hunger  for  sympathy  and  love  and  loveliness, 
the  loneliness  that  gnawed  him,  she  comprehended  now.  And 
as  she  looked  about  her  at  the  dainty,  carefully  chosen  furniture 
and  the  exquisite  old-world-patterned  chintz  draperies,  recog- 
nizing what  his  care  had  been  to  please  her,  and  how  every 
little  taste  and  preference  of  hers  had  been  remembered  and 
gratified,  a  sense  of  her  own  ingratitude  pierced  her  to  the  quick. 

She  had  parted  from  Owen  without  one  tender  word,  with- 
out even  one  glance  of  greater  kindness  than  she  would  have 
bestowed  upon  a  stranger.  She  ached  with  futile  remorse  at 
the  recollection  of  that  frigid,  distant  good-bye  at  Euston 
Station,  when  Lady  Hannah's  shrill  laugh  had  jangled  through 
Major  Bingo's  blustering  admonitions  to  perspiring  porters 
to  put  the  luggage  in  one  compartment,  to  stow  canvas  bags  of 
golf-clubs  and  fishing-rods  in  the  racks,  and  to  damage  bicycles 
at  their  personal  peril,  since  the  company  evaded  liability. 

It  had  been  Saxham's  wish  that  Lady  Hannah  and  Major 
Wrynche  should  be  his  wife's  guests  at  Plas  Bendigaid.  Look- 
ing from  her  bedroom  casements  over  the  tops  of  the  lilacs  and 
larches,  the  laburnums  and  hawthorns  and  hollies  of  the  low- 
walled  garden  that  ended  at  the  sheer  cliff-edge,  from  whence 
you  looked  down  upon  the  tops  of  the  pines  and  chestnuts, 
whose  green  foliage  hid  the  shining  metals  of  the  iron  way,  and 
made  a  sea  of  verdure  in  place  of  the  salt  blue  waves  that  once 
had  lapped  and  gurgled  there — gazing  across  the  powdery  sand- 
dunes  that  were  prickly  with  sea-holly  and  gay  with  flaunting 
poppies  and  purple  scabious,  the  pink  and  white  convolvulus, 
and  the  thorny  yellow  dwarf  rose,  that  somehow  finds  nourish- 
ment in  the  pale  sand  of  Herion  Links,  to  the  line  of  white 


564  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

breakers  that  rose  and  fell  more  than  a  mile  away,  Lynette 
sighed  a  small  sigh  of  resignation  at  the  prospect  of  long  weeks 
to  be  spent  in  the  society  of  these  pleasant,  well-bred,  rather 
fidgety  people  Owen  had  chosen  to  bear  her  company, 

Of  course,  Owen  could  not  leave  his  patients.  He  had  ex- 
plained that,  and  Lady  Hannah  and  her  big  Major  were  old 
friends  of  hers  and  his.  And  the  little  woman  with  the  jan- 
gling laugh  and  the  snapping  black  eyes  had  known  the  Mother 
in  her  youth.  .  .  . 

At  that  remembrance  Lynette's  eyes  went  lovingly  to  the 
copy  of  the  Millais  portrait,  and  as  the  sun  burst  through  the 
streaming  wind-chased  clouds,  and  smote  bright  diamond-rays 
from  the  dripping  window-panes,  the  firm  lips  seemed  to  curve 
in  the  rare,  sudden  smile,  the  great  grey  eyes  to  gleam  with  life 
and  tenderness. 

Ah,  to  spend  a  long,  sweet  summer  here,  alone  with  that 
dearest  of  all  companions!  Lynette's  white  throat  swelled  at 
the  thought,  and  a  mist  blotted  out  the  noble  face,  crowned 
with  its  diadem  of  rich  black  tresses.  She  wiped  the  tear? 
away,  and  beheld  a  world  miraculously  changed.  For  land 
and  sea  were  drenched  in  radiant  sunshine. 

She  unlatched  the  casements  and  threw  them  wide,  and  clean, 
salt,  sweet  air  came  streaming  in,  bringing  the  fragrance  of 
hawthorn  and  lilac  and  laburnum,  and  the  aromatic  tang  of 
the  larch  and  pine.  She  leaned  her  white  arms  upon  the  grey 
stone  window-sill,  and  drank  the  freshness  and  fragrance.  And 
it  seemed  to  her  that  this  ancient  grange,  perched  on  the  cliff- 
ledge  in  the  tremendous  shadow  of  Herion  Castle,  looking 
across  the  restless  grey-blue  waters  of  Nantmadoc  Bay  to  St. 
Tirlan's  Roads,  was  an  ideal  place  to  spend  a  honeymoon  in, 
supposing  you  loved  the  man  you  had  married,  and  were  loved 
by  him. 

Her  bosom  heaved  to  the  time  of  her  heart's  throbbing.  A 
blush  burned  over  her,  and  she  drove  the  thought  away.  It 
came  back,  whispering  like  a  guest  who  wishes  not  to  be  dis- 
missed. It  pleaded  and  urged  and  compelled.  Something  like 
a  strong  hand  closed  upon  her  heart  and  drew  her,  drew  her. 
...  A  voice  called  to  her  in  the  silence  that  was  only  broken 
by  the  voices  of  birds,  and  the  rustling  of  wind-stirred  leaves, 
and  the  crying  of  the  gulls  above  the  white  restless  breakers. 
And  the  voice  was  Owen's. 

How  strangely  he  had  looked  and  spoken  in  that  last 
moment  of  their  parting !  It  came  back  in  every  detail  for  the 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  565 

hundredth  time,  as  she  leaned  her  white  arms  upon  the  window- 
sill  and  looked  out  with  wistful  eyes  upon  the  beauty  of  the 
blossoming  world. 

"Good-bye,  good-bye!       Be  happy — and  forget!" 

The  train  had  begun  to  move  as  he  uttered  the  words.  He 
had  gripped  her  hand  painfully  and  released  it.  As  he  drew  his 
arm  sharply  away,  a  button,  hanging  loosely  by  a  thread  or 
two,  became  detached  from  his  coat-cuff,  and  fell  upon  the  rub- 
ber matting  of  the  corridor.  She  was  conscious  of  the  button 
as  Saxham  and  the  crowded,  grimy  platform  receded  from  her 
view.  And  before  she  went  back  to  her  seat  in  the  compart- 
ment that  had  been  reserved  for  herself  and  her  fellow- 
travellers,  she  picked  up  the  tiny  disc  of  black  horn,  and  secretly 
kissed  it,  and  slipped  it  into  her  purse.  She  was  silent  and 
preoccupied  during  the  eleven  hours'  journey,  turning  over  and 
over  in  her  mind,  mentally  repeating  with  every  shade  of  ex- 
pression that  could  vary  their  meaning,  Saxham's  strange  words 
of  farewell. 

She  repeated  them  now  aloud.  They  were  tossed  to  and  fro 
in  her  heart  on  waves  of  wonder  and  regret  and  apprehension. 
Did  Owen  really  believe  that,  to  be  happy  she  must  forget  him  ? 
Did  he  comprehend  that  she  had  long  arrived  at  the  conclusion 
that  this  loveless,  joyless  companionship,  mocked  by  the  name 
of  marriage,  was  a  miserable  mistake? 

He  had  never  been  under  any  illusion  as  concerned  it.  He 
had  accepted  the  iron  terms  of  the  contract  she  offered  him  with 
open  eyes  and  full  knowledge.  She  heard  his  voice  again,  as 
it  had  spoken  in  the  Cemetery  at  Gueldersdorp,  saying: 

"  Would  I  be  content  to  enter,  with  you  for  my  partner,  into 
a  marriage  that  should  be  practically  no  marriage  at  all — a 
formal  contract  that  is  not  wedlock?  That  might  never 
change  as  Time  went  on,  and  ripen  into  the  close  union  that 
physically  and  mentally  makes  happiness  for  men  and  women 
who  love?  Is  that  what  you  ask  me,  Miss  Mildare?  " 

That  was  just  what  she  had  asked.  He  had  accepted  her 
iron  conditions,  and  stipulated  for  nothing.  He  had  given  his 
all.  What  had  she  given  him?  Nothing  but  suffering,  being 
rendered  pitiless  by  the  ache  and  sting  in  her  own  bosom — ab- 
sorbed, swallowed  up  by  her  agony  of  grief  for  the  Mother,  her 
passion  of  regret  for  dead  Beauvayse. 

Beauvayse.  .  .  .  Suppose  he  and  Owen  Saxham  stood  side 
by  side  down  there  on  the  green  short  grass  beneath  her  win- 
dows, which  of  the  two  men  would  to-day  be  the  dearer  and 


566  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

the  more  desired — the  tall,  soldierly  young  figure,  with  the 
sunburnt,  handsome  face,  the  gay,  amorous,  challenging  glance, 
the  red  mouth  that  laughed  under  the  golden  moustache,  and 
the  shallow  brain  under  the  close-clipped  golden  curls,  or  the 
black-haired,  hulking  Doctor,  with  the  square-cut,  powerful 
face  and  the  stern  blue  eyes,  the  man  of  heart  and  intellect, 
whose  indomitable,  patient  tenderness  had  led  a  stricken  girl 
back  from  the  borders  of  that  strange  land  where  the  brain- 
sick dwell  to  wholesome  consciousness  of  common  things  and 
renewed  health  fulness  of  body  and  of  mind? 

She  had  hardly  thanked  him.  She  realized,  with  tears  of 
scorching  shame,  that  this  inestimable  service,  as  all  the  others 
rendered  her  by  Saxham,  she  had  accepted  as  matter  of  course. 
It  was  the  way  of  Saxham's  world  to  take  of  him  and  render 
nothing;  he  who  was  worthy  to  be  a  King  among  his  fellow- 
men  had  been  their  servant  as  long  as  she  had  known  him. 

To  call  him  hard  and  stern,  and  seek  his  aid  and  sympathy 
at  every  pinch;  to  deem  him  cold  and  grudging,  and  accept  his 
sacrifices  as  matter  of  course — that  was  the  way  of  the  world 
with  grim-jawed,  tender-hearted  Owen  Saxham.  And  she, 
who  had  done  like  the  rest,  knew  him  now,  and  valued  him  for 
what  he  was,  and — loved  him.  .  .  .  For  this  was  love  that 
had  corne  upon  her  like  a  strong  man  armed,  not  as  he  had 
shown  himself  to  her  before — laughing  and  merry,  playful  and 
sweet.  .  .  .  This  was  no  ephemeral,  girlish  passion,  evoked 
by  the  beauty  of  gay,  wanton,  grey-green  jewel-eyes  and  a  bold, 
smiling  mouth.  This  was  a  love  that  drew  you  with  irresist- 
ible strength,  and  knitted  you  to  the  soul,  and  the  heart,  and 
the  flesh  of  another,  until  his  breath  became  your  breath,  and 
his  life  your  life.  It  called  you  with  a  voice  that  plucked  at  the 
secret  chords  of  your  being,  and  was  stern  and  compelling 
rather  than  sweet  to  implore.  It  drew  you  to  the  beloved, 
not  with  garlands  of  rose,  but  with  ropes  of  silk  and  steel.  It 
was  potent  and  resistless  as  death,  and  infinitely  deeper  than  the 
grave.  It.  reached  out  aspiring  hands  beyond  the  grave,  into 
Eternity.  And,  newly  born  as  it  rose  in  the  heart  of  this 
woman,  it  was  yet  as  old  as  Eden,  where  Heavenly  Love 
created  the  earthly  love,  that,  is  more  than  half-divine. 

Why,  why  had  he  sent  her  away,  bidding  her  be  happy  and 
forget  him  ?  .  .  .  The  memory  of  his  hollow  eyes  and  haggard 
face  pierced  her  to  the  quick.  He  was  ill — he  was  in  trouble; 
he.  had  sent  her  away  that  he  might  bear  the  burden  solely. 
...  Or  ...  an  iron  hand  closed  upon  her  heart,  and  wrung 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  567 

it  until  points  of  moisture  started  upon  her  fair  temples  under 
the  fine  tendrils  of  her  hair  .  .  .  could  the  reason  be — another 
woman  ? 

Another  woman?  .  .  ,  She  set  her  little  teeth  and  drove 
the  unworthy  thought  away.  But  it  came  again  and  again — • 
a  persistent  mental  gad-fly.  Was  he  not  worthy  of  love? 
Suppose  another  sweeter,  gentler  creature  had  found  a  throne 
in  the  heart  that  his  wife  had  prized  so  lightly,  would  it  be  so 
very  strange,  after  all?  Perhaps  that  was  why  he  had  asked 
her  to  forgive  him  for  having  married  her  a  little  while  ago. 

She  dropped  her  head  upon  her  folded  arms,  and  sobbed 
at  the  thought.  Then  she  dried  her  tears  and  rang  for  her 
maid,  and  presently  came  down  to  breakfast  with  Lady 
Hannah,  smiling  and  composed,  cheerful  and  attentive  as  a 
hostess  ought  to  be.  But  her  reddened  eyelids  told  tales. 

"  Misses  her  Doctor,  no  doubt,"  thought  Lady  Hannah,  as 
she  commended  the  country  eggs  and  butter,  and  was  en- 
thusiastic over  the  thyme-scented  Welsh  mountain-honey,  and 
apologetic  over  the  absence  of  her  Bingo  from  the  board. 

She  would  carry  her  nuisance  his  breakfast  with  her  own 
hands,  she  vowed,  as  he  had  left  his  man  behind,  on  hearing 
from  the  Doctor  that  the  house  was  a  small  one. 

"  But  why  ?  "  asked  Lynette.  "  There  is  Marie,  my  maid, 
and  the  red-cheeked  parlourmaid,  whose  name  I  don't  yet 
know,  and  Mrs.  Pugh,  the  housekeeper  .  .  ." 

"Who  was  Dr.  Saxham's  nurse  when  he  was  a  little  boy, 
and  adores  him.  And  Mrs.  Pugh's  husband,  who  is  gardener, 
and  handy-man,  and  coachman  when  required."  Lady 
Hannah's  laugh  jangled  out  over  the  capacious  tray,  containing 
the  comprehensive  assortment  of  viands  representing  what  the 
invalid  was  wont,  to  term  his  "  brekker."  "  But  I'm  not  to  be 
deprived  of  my  privilege,  for  all  that.  Do  you  suppose  you 
young  married  creatures  are  the  only  wives  who  enjoy  cosseting 
their  husbands?  There!  it's  out,  and  I  ought  to  be  ashamed 
of  myself,  I  suppose,  but  I'm  not.  Is  that  collared  brawn  on 
the  sideboard  ?  Bingo  has  a  devouring  passion  for  collared 
brawn."  She  added  a  goodly  slice  to  the  contents  of  the  tray. 
"  I  warn  you,  if  you  regard  the  billing  and  cooing  of  a  middle- 
aged  couple  as  indecent,"  she  went  on,  "  to  look  the  other  way 
a  great  deal  while  we're  here.  For  I  was  for  the  first  time 
seriously  smitten  with  my  husband  when  he  rode  out  to  meet 
me,  returning  from  ignoble  captivity  in  the  tents  of  Bronnckers, 
sixteen  months  ago.  When  I  nursed  him  through  enteric  in 


568  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

the  Hospital  at  Frostenberg — I  won't  disguise  it — I  fell  in 
love!  With  a  bag  of  bones,  for  he  was  nothing  else:  but 
genuine  passion  is  indifferent  to  the  personal  appearance  of  the 
beloved  object,  though  I  hadn't  suspected  it  before.  The 
wound  completed  my  conquest,  and  since  then  I'm  madly 
jealous  if  another  woman  looks  at  him.  ...  I  see  red — green 
would  be  a  better  colour — because  he  prefers  to  have  his  valet, 
brush  his  hair.  I  don't  know  that  I  didn't  reduce  the  holding 
capacity  of  this  house  by  a  storey — there's  a  pun  for  you! — so 
as  to  engineer  my  hated  rival  being  left  at  home  in  Wilton 
Place.  Is  that  lovely  amber-coloured  stuff  in  the  cut-glass  jar 
quince  marmalade?  No;  I  won't  pamper  Bingo,  if  he  is  the 
idol  of  my  soul.  And  please  don't  wait  for  me.  He  likes 
me  to  take  off  the  tops  of  his  eggs  for  him,  and  he  usually  eats 
three.  .  .  ." 

Lady  Hannah  tripped  off  with  her  load,  and  deposited  it 
before  the  idol,  who  was  sitting  up  in  a  Japanese  bed-jacket 
of  wadded  pink  satin,  left-handedly  reading  the  Herion  news- 
paper that  comes  out  once  a  week,  and  is  published  at  St. 
Tirlan's,  twenty  miles  away. 

"  I've  made  a  discovery,"  she  announced.  "  No,  don't  look 
frightened.  It's  only  that  poor  Biddy's  belle  trouvaille  has  got 
a  heart.  She's  not  the  tinted  Canova-nymph,  the  piece  of 
correct,  inanity,  I  honestly  believed  her.  .  .  .  She  idolized 
Biddy — small  credit,  for  who  could  help  it  ?  She  submitted  to 
be  adored  by  that  poor  foolish  boy  who's  dead.  .  .  .  Now  she's 
her  black-avised  Doctor's  humble  worshipper  and  slave." 

"  Can't  understand  a  woman  worshipping  a  chap  with  a 
chin  like  the  bows  of  an  armoured  Destroyer,  and  eyebrows 
like  another  man's  moustaches,"  Bingo  objected. 

"  Chin  or  no  chin,  eyebrows  or  not  a  hair,  what  does  that 
count  to  a  woman  in  love?"  She  placed  the  laden  tray  be- 
fore him,  and  with  a  maternal  air  proceeded  to  tuck  a  napkin 
under  his  chin.  He  grumbled : 

"  There's  no  knowin'  what  will  take  the  female  fancy.  But 
even  if  you  haven't  harked  away  on  a  wrong  scent,  slave's  a 
dash  too  strong.  Struck  me  they  parted  uncommon  chilly  and 
off-hand  at  Euston  yesterday  mornin',  considerin'  they've  not 
been  married  much  above  a  year.  Do  take  this  thing  from 
round  my  neck!  Makes  me  feel  like  Little  Willie." 

Lady  Hannah  unpinned  the  napkin  that  framed  the  bulldog- 
jowl,  and  said,  patting  the  sandy-pink  bullethead: 

"That's  what  it  is  to  be  Eyes  and  No  Eyes  in  amatory 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  569 

affairs.  No  Eyes  sees  two  people  part,  '  uncommon  off-hand 
and  chilly.' "  She  mimicked  Bingo's  tone.  "  Eyes  sees  that 
and  something  more.  A  man's  coat-button  dropped  on  the 
floor  of  a  railway  carriage,  for  instance,  and  a  young  woman 
who  slyly  picks  it  up — silly  little  gage  d'amour — and  kisses  it 
when  a  considerate  observer  pretends  not  to  be  looking,  and 
hides  it  away.  Is  that  evidence,  Major  Mole?" 

"By  the  Living  Tinker!"  he  thundered,  "I  wouldn't  have 
believed  it  of  her !  " 

"  Of  course  you  wouldn't !  "  She  rummaged  in  an  open 
suit-case.  "What  necktie  do  you  want  to  wear  to-day?" 

He  mumbled  ruefully,  eyeing  her  over  the  coffee-cup: 

"Any  of  'em.  It  don't  matter  which.  They're  all  alike 
when  you've  tied  'em !  " 

She  beamed  at  what  seemed  to  her  a  gallant  speech. 

"Sans  compliment?  You  really  mean  it?  And  you  won't 
miss  Grindlay  so  frightfully,  after  all  ?  " 

He  shook  his  head  ambiguously. 

"  I  shan't  begin  really  to  suffei  for  Grindlay — not  till  it 
comes  to  tubbin'  with  one  fin." 

"  Mercy  upon  us !  "  She  gasped  in  consternation.  He 
said,  controlling  his  features  from  wreathing  into  triumphant 
smiles  .  .  . 

"  You  were  so  cast-iron  certain  you  could  fill  his  place,  you 
know!" 

Her  bright  black  eyes  were  hidden  under  abashed  and  droop- 
ing eyelids.  Blushes  played  hide-and-seek  in  the  small  cheeks 
that  were  usually  pale. 

"  In — in  everything  essential,"  she  stammered,  avoiding  his 
intolerable  gaze. 

"  Then  that's  what  it  is  to  be  Eyes  and  No  Eyes  in  ordi- 
nary, everyday  affairs!  "  The  man  pursued  his  advantage  piti- 
lessly. "  Didn't  you  regard  it  as  essential  that.  I  should 
wash?" 

She  winked  tears  away,  though  her  laugh  answered  him. 

"  Most  certainly  I  did,  and  do.  One  of  the  reasons  that  de- 
cided me  on  marrying  you  was  that  you  were  invariably  propre 
comme  un  sou  neuf." 

"  I  thought,  on  mature  reflection,"  said  Bingo,  lying  down 
under  the  lightened  tray  with  a  replete  and  satisfied  air,  "  that 
you  would  prefer  a  clean  husband  to  a  dirty  one.  Therefore 
I  engaged  a  bedroom  for  Grindlay  at  the  Herion  Arms. 
That's  his  knock.  Come  in!" 


570  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

The  valet  presented  himself  upon  the  threshold,  backing 
respectfully  at  sight  of  her  ladyship,  who  gave  him  a  gracious 
good-morning,  dissembling  the  intense  relief  experienced  at 
sight  of  his  smug,  clean-shaven  countenance. 

"Good-morning,  Grindlay.  I  hope  the  Hotel  people  made 
you  comfortable.  And  now  you  have  arrived  to  take  respon- 
sibility off  my  hands,"  she  announced,  "  I'll  go  and  get  some 
breakfast." 

"Haven't  you  .  .  .  You're  joking!"  The  tray  shot  from 
the  bed  into  Grindlay's  saving  clutch  as  Bingo  suddenly  as- 
sumed the  perpendicular.  "  You  don't  mean  to  say  that  you've 
been  starving  all  the  time  I've  been  gorging  myself  like — like 
a  boa-constrictor?"  he  demanded  furiously.  "Why  on  earth 
are  women  such  blessed " 

" — Idiots?"  she  supplied,  turning  on  the  threshold  to  launch 
her  Parthian  shaft.  "  Because  if  they  were  intellectual,  logical 
beings  they  would  know  better  than  to  lavish  devotion  upon 
stupid,  selfish,  unappreciative,  heartless,  dull  dolts  of  men!" 

The  door  slammed  behind  an  injured  woman.  Grindlay's 
face  was  a  study  in  immobility.  Bingo,  after  a  little  more 
meditation,  ponderingly  rose  and  submitted  himself  to  the 
hands  of  his  man.  When  the  Major's  toilet  had  reached  the 
stage  of  hair-parting,  he  roused  himself  from  his  reflections 
with  a  sigh. 

"  Hold  on.  Put  down  that  comb  and  go  and  ask  her  lady- 
ship to  be  good  enough  to  step  up  here.  Tell  her  that  your 
style  of  hairdressin'  don't  suit  me.  I  want  a  little  more 
imagination  thrown  into  the  thing.  Hurry  up,  will  you?" 

"O  Lord!  What  a  liar  I  am!"  he  murmured  fervently, 
addressing  his  reflection  in  the  glass.  His  wife's  face  appeared 
over  his  shoulder,  bright,  alert,  and  pleased.  She  said,  as  she 
adroitly  assumed  the  office  vacated  by  the  discarded  Grindlay, 
who  discreetly  delayed  his  re-entrance  on  the  scene: 

"  So  you  can't  get  on,  it  appears,  without  your  '  blessed 
idiot'?" 

"  Blessed  angel,  you  mean,"  said  mendacious  Bingo,  blink- 
ing under  a  Little  Lord  Fauntleroy  fringe.  "  You  banged 
the  door  before  I'd  got  out  the  word !  " 

"If  I  could  believe  that!"  she  sighed,  and  the  ivory-backed 
hair-brushes  played  rather  a  tremulous  fantasia  upon  her  idol's 
head,  "  perhaps  I  might  be  induced  to  confide  to  you  a  piece  of 
genuine  Secret  Intelligence." 

"Concernin'?" 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  571 

"  Concerning  your  wife,  Hannah  Wrynche." 

"Well,  what  of  her?" 

She  took  him  by  the  chin  and  began  to  part  his  hair.  But 
her  eyes  were  misty,  and  her  hand  travelled  unsteadily. 

"  This  of  her.  She  owned  to  you,  months  and  months  back, 
that  in  your  place  she  wouldn't  have  been  one-millionth  part 
as  patient  with  a  restless,  ambitious  woman  cursed  with  an 
especial  capacity  for  getting  herself  and  other  people  into  hot 
water."  She  made  a  little  affected  grimace  that  masked  a 
genuine  smart.  "  Not  hot  water  only — boiling  lava  sometimes 
— fizzling  vitriol." 

He  said,  looking  kindly  up  at  the  small  mobile  face  and 
quivering  chin: 

"  Restlessness  and  ambition  are  in  the  blood,  y'  know,  like 
gout  and  the  rest  of  it.  You  can't,  eradicate  'em,  however 
much  you  try.  It's  like  shavin'  a  Danish  carriage-dog  to 
change  his  colour.  You  can't  for  nuts;  his  spots  are  in  his 
skin!  See?" 

" Merci  du  compliment!"  Her  jangling  laugh  rang  out  as 
if  a  stick  had  been  smartly  rattled  down  the  keys  of  a  piano. 
But  her  eyes  were  wet.  His  own  eyes  reverted  to  his  reflec- 
tion in  the  toilet-glass.  Now  his  sudden  bellow  made  her  drop 
the  comb. 

"My  Aunt  Maria!  See  what  you've  been  and  done! 
Made  a  Loop  Railway  down  the  middle  of  my  head,  unless 
my  liver's  making  me  see  things  curly.  Don't,  swot  at  it  any 
more ;  let  that  ass  Grindlay  earn  his  pay  for  once.  ...  By  the 
Living  Tinker!  you're  cryin'.  Don't  go  and  say  I've  been  a 
brute !  "  he  pleaded. 

"Darling! — dearest! — you  haven't — you've  never!  .  .  .1 
The  boot's  on  the  other  leg,  though  wild  horses  wouldn't  get, 
you  to  own  as  much."  His  strong  left  arm  was  round  heri 
slight  waist,  her  wet  cheek  pressed  against  her  Major's  bulldog 
jowl.  He  cleared  his  throat  in  his  ponderous,  scraping  way, 
admitting: 

"  Well,  perhaps  I  may  have  dropped  a  briny  or  so — of  nights 
in  bed  at  Nixey's,  or  on  duty  at  Staff  Bomb-proof  South,  be- 
tween ring-up's  on  the  telephone  when  the  off-duty  men  were 
snorin',  and  one  had  nothin'  on  the  blessed  earth  to  do  but 
wonder  whether  one  had  a  wife  or  not  ?  " 

"  There  were  people  ready  to  tell  you — years  before  we  saw 
Gueldersdorp — that  the  one  you'd  got  was  as  good  as 
none.  , 


572  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"  Lucky  for  'em  they  refrained  from  expressin'  their 
opinions."  She  felt  his  great  muscles  swell  as  the  big  hand 
tightened  on  her  wrist.  "  Though,  mind  you,  there  have  been 
times  when  for  your  own  sake,  by  Jingo!  I'd  have  given  all  I 
was  worth  to  have  you  a  bit  more  like  other  women " 

"Who  weren't  dying  to  dabble  in  Diplomacy  and  win  dis- 
tinction as  War  Correspondents.  Who  funk  raw-head  and 
bloody  bones  " — she  shook  with  a  nervous  giggle — "  and  all 
that  sort  of  thing.  .  .  .  Would  it  please  you  to  know  that  the 
plumes  of  my  panache  of  ambition  have  been  cut  to  the  last 
quill — that  henceforth  my  sole  aim  is  to  rival  the  domestic 
Partlet,  clucking  of  barnyard  matters  in  the  discreet  retirement 
of  the  coop  ?  " 

"You've  said  as  much  before!"  he  objected. 

"  But  now  I  mean  it !  Put  me  to  the  test.  Let  the  house 
in  Wilton  Place — we'll  live  at  Wrynche  Royal,  if  you  think 
you  won't  be  bored  ?  " 

He  bellowed  joyously! 

"  Me  bored !  With  ten  thousand  acres  arable  and  wood 
and  moorland  to  farm  and  preserve  and  shoot  over,  two  first- 
class  packs  meetin'  within  a  fifty-mile  radius  of  my  doorstep, 
and  the  Committee  of  the  local  Polo  Association  shriekin'  for  a 
President,  and  the  whole  County  beggin'  me  with  tears  in  its 
eyes  to  take  the  hint  a  Certain  Person  dropped  when  he  gave 
me  my  C.B.,  and  accept  the  Crown  Commission  as  Lord-Lieu- 
tenant! 'Bored' — I  like  that!" 

"  If  you  would  like  it,  be  it! "  she  flashed.  "Trust  me  to 
back  you  up.  I  can  and  I  will!  I'll  help  you  entertain  the 
military  authorities  and  their  women,  keep  the  Rolls,  sit  on  the 
'Bench  when  you  weigh  in  as  Chief  Magistrate,  and  prompt 
you  when  you  get  into  a  hat.  I'll  be  all  things  to  one  man — 
and  you  shall  be  the  man.  Only" — she  laughed  hysterically, 
her  face  hidden  against  his  big  shoulder — "  I  don't  quite  know 
how  far  these  things  are  compatible  with  my  new  role." 

"  Of  domestic  Henny-Penny  cluckin'  in  the  Home  Coop." 
Kis  big  hand  patted  her  almost  paternally.  "  Leave  cluckin' 
to  hens  with  families.  Do  you  suppose  I'm  such  a  pachyder- 
matous ass  that  I  can't  understand  that  home  is  a  make-believe 
to  a  real  woman,  when — when  there  isn't  even  one  chicken  to 
tuck  under  her  wing !  Worse  luck  for  me  and  you !  " 

She  laughed  wildly,  lifting  her  wet,  flushed  face  up  to  him. 
Her  black  eyes  were  shining  through  the  tears  that  rose  and 
brimmed  over  and  fell. 


ONE   BRAVER    THING  573 

"  If  I  told  you  that  the  luck  had  changed,  would  that  make 
you  happy  ?  " 

He  cried  out  with  a  great  oath : 

"Yes,  by  G ! "  and  caught  her  to  his  leaping  heart. 

LXVIII 

IN  the  weeks  that  followed,  Lynette,  in  the  course  of  many 
interviews  held  with  Janellan  Pugh  on  the  subject  of  lunch 
and  dinner,  learned  much  anent  the  difficulty  of  obtaining 
fresh  fish  in  a  sea-coast  village,  more  as  regards  the  Satanic 
duplicity  with  which  even  a  Calvinistic  Methodist  butcher  will 
substitute  New  Zealand  lamb  for  the  native  animal,  and  still 
more  about  Saxham. 

Janellan,  who  had  been  a  rosy  maid  in  the  service  of  the 
Doctor's  grandfather,  the  Parson,  had  thought  the  world's 
worth  of  Master  Owen,  from  the  first  time  she  set  eyes  on 
him  in  a  white  frock,  with  a  sausage-roll  curl  and  diamond- 
patterned  socks.  She  had  a  venerable  and  spotty  photograph 
of  him  as  a  square-headed,  blinking  little  boy  in  a  velvet  suit 
and  lace  collar,  and  another  photograph,  coloured  by  hand, 
taken  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  and  paid  for  out  of  his  own 
pocket-money,  to  send  to  Janellan,  who  had  nursed  him  through 
a  holiday  scarlet-fever.  And  regularly  had  her  blessed  boy  re- 
membered her  and  Tafydd,  said  Janellan,  until  the  Cruel  Time 
came,  and  he  was  lost  sight  of  in  Foreign  Parts.  Then  Mrs. 
Saxham  died,  and  the  Captain — mentioned  by  Janellan  with 
the  ringing  sniff  that  speaks  volumes  of  disparagement — had 
turned  her  and  her  man  out  of  the  Plas  "  without  as  much  as 
that !  " — here  Janellan  snapped  her  strong  thumb-nail  against 
her  remaining  front  tooth — in  recognition  of  their  forty  years 
of  service. 

But  Master  Owen,  coming  to  his  own  again,  "  and  'deed 
an'  'deed,  but  the  Plas  ought  to  have  been  his  from  the  be- 
ginning," had  sought  out  the  old  couple,  living  in  decent 
poverty  at  St.  Tirlans,  and  reinstated  them  in  their  old  home. 
And  well  might  Tafydd,  who  was  a  better  judge  of  the  points 
of  a  pig  than  any  man  in  Herion — or  in  all  Wales  for  the 
matter  of  that — well  might  Tafydd  declare  that  the  Lord  never 
made  a  better  man  than  Dr.  Owen  Saxham.  What  grand 
things  they  had  said  of  him  in  the  papers!  No  doubt  the 
young  mistress  would  have  plenty  more  to  tell  that  had  not 
got  into  print? 


574  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

"  I  can  tell  you  many  things  of  the  Doctor,"  said  Lynette, 
smiling  in  the  black-eyed,  streaky-apple  face,  "  that  you  and 
Tafydd  will  be  proud  and  glad  to  hear." 

She  shunned  the  giving  or  receiving  of  caresses  as  a  rule, 
but  this  morning  she  stooped  and  kissed  the  red-veined, 
wrinkled  cheek  within  Janellan's  white-quilled  cap-border. 
Then,  her  household  duties  done,  she  pinned  a  rough,  shady 
straw-hat  upon  the  red-brown  hair,  and  drew  loose  chamois- 
leather  gloves  over  the  slim  white  exquisite  hands  that  were 
perhaps  her  greatest  beauty,  chose  a  walking-stick  from  the 
hall-rack,  ran  down  the  steep  cliff  pathway,  crossed  the 
spidery,  red-rusted  iron  foot-bridge  that  spanned  the  railway- 
line,  descended  upon  the  farther  side  of  the  wood  of  chestnut 
and  larch  that  made  green  shadows  at  the  base  of  the  cliff, 
and  was  upon  the  sand-dunes,  walking  with  the  free,  undulat- 
ing gait  she  had  acquired  from  the  Mother,  towards  the  restless 
line  of  white  breakers  that  rose  and  fell  a  mile  away. 

She  was  happy.  A  glorious  secret  kept  her  bosom  company; 
a  new  hope  gave  her  strength.  She  drank  in  long  draughts  of 
the  strong,  salt,  fragrant  air,  and  as  it  filled  her  lungs,  knew 
her  soul  brimmed  with  fresh  delight  in  the  beauty  of  the  world. 
And  a  renewed  and  quickened  sense  of  the  joy  of  life  made 
music  of  the  beating  of  her  pulses  and  the  throbbing  of  her 
heart. 

She  was  a  child  of  the  wild  veld,  but  none  the  less  a  daughter 
of  this  sea-girt  Britain:  the  blue,  restless  waves  beyond  that 
line  of  white  frothing  breakers  washed  the  shores  of  the 
Mother's  beloved  green  island,  Emerald  Airinn,  set  in  silver 
foam.  A  few  miles,  St.  George's  Channel  spanned — tJhen 
straight  as  the  crow  flies  over  Wicklow,  Queen's  County, 
King's  County,  taking  Galway  at  the  acute  angle  of  the  wild 
mallard's  flight;  and  there  would  be  the  chained  lakes  and 
stretching  rivers,  the  grey-green  mountains  and  the  beetling 
cliffs,  the  dreamy  valleys  and  wild  glens  of  Connemara,  and 
the  ancient  towers  of  Castleclare  rising  from  its  mossed  lawns 
studded  with  immemorial  oaks.  And  Loch  Kilbawne  among 
the  wild  highlands,  and  Lochs  Innsa  and  Darva,  and  Bally- 
barron  Harbour,  with  its  titanic  breakwater,  and  three  beacons, 
and  the  dun-brown  islands  hidden  in  their  veil  of  surf-edged 
spindrift,  shaken  by  the  voices  of  hidden  waters  roaring  in  their 
secret  caves. 

A  faint  smile  played  about  her  sensitive  lips.  Her  golden 
eyes  dreamed  as  she  walked  on  swiftly,  a  slender  figure  dressed 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  575 

in  a  plain  skirt  of  rough  grey-blue,  and  a  loose-sleeved  blouse 
of  thick  white  silk,  her  slight  waist  belted  with  a  silver- 
mounted  lizard-skin  girdle,  a  pleasant  tinkle  of  silver  chatelaine 
appendages  accompanying  her  steps. 

And  those  steps  were  to  her  no  longer  uncompanioned. 
It  was  as  though  the  Mother  were  living,  so  enfolding  and 
close  was  the  sense  of  her  presence  to-day.  God  was  in  His 
Heaven,  and  the  world,  His  footstool,  bore  the  visible  impress 
of  His  Feet.  And  it  seemed  to  Lynette,  who  had  learned  to 
see  the  faces  of  Christ  and  of  His  Mother  Mary  through  the 
lineaments  of  the  earthly  face  that  had  first  looked  love  upon 
herself  in  her  terrible  abandonment,  that  those  Divine  and 
glorious  countenances  looked  down  on  her  and  smiled.  And 
her  chilled  faith  spread  quivering  wings,  basking  in  their  in- 
effable mild  radiance  as  the  little  blue  and  tortoiseshell  butter- 
flies basked  in  the  glorious  July  sunshine  that  had  followed  the 
morning's  storm. 

The  tangible  presence  seemed  to  move  beside  her,  through 
the  white  powdery  sand.  Over  the  knotted  grasses,  between 
the  tufts  of  poppies  and  the  prickly  little  yellow  roses  that 
fringed  the  hollows,  the  garments  of  another  seemed  to  sweep 
beside  her  own.  The  folds  of  a  thin  veil  upborne  on  the 
elastic  breeze  fluttered  beside  her  cheek,  blew  against  her  lips, 
bringing  the  rare  delicate  fragrance — the  familiar  perfume  that 
clung  to  everything  the  Mother  habitually  wore  and  used 
and  touched.  She  did  not  look  round,  or  stretch  out  her  hand. 
She  walked  along,  drinking  in  blissfulness  and  companionship 
at  every  pore  of  her  thirsty  soul,  joyfully  realizing  that  this 
would  last;  that  by-and-by  the  great  void  of  loneliness  would 
not  close  in  on  her  again. 

Only  the  night  before,  upon  the  brink  of  the  supreme  dis- 
covery that  the  dead  in  Christ  are  not  only  living  in  Him,  but 
for  us  also  who  are  His,  she  had  hesitated  and  doubted.  Be-, 
fore  the  sunrise  of  this  glorious  day  she  had  learned  to  doubt 
no  more. 

She  had  been  restless  and  unhappy.  Saxham  had  not  writ- 
ten for  a  week.  She  bitterly  missed  the  short,  cold,  kind 
letters  in  the  clear,  small,  firm  handwriting,  that  had  reached 
her  at  intervals  of  three  days,  to  be  answered  by  her  constrained 
and  timid  notes,  hoping  that  he  was  well  and  not  overworking, 
describing  the  place  and  her  pleasure  in  it,  without  mention 
of  her  loneliness;  giving  details  of  Major  Wrynche's  progress 


576  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

towards  recovery,  and  left-handed  attempts  at  golf,  winding 
up  with  messages  from  Lady  Hannah  and  dutiful  remembrances 
from  David  and  Janellan,  and  signed,  his  affectionate  wife, 
Lynette  Saxham. 

Trite  and  laboured  and  schoolgirlish  enough  those  epistles 
seemed  to  their  writer.  To  Saxham  they  were  drops  of  rain 
upon  the  parching  soil  of  his  heart,  the  one  good  that  life  had 
for  him  in  this  final  hap  of  the  race.  And  yet  he  had  ceased 
to  write  that  they  might  come  no  more. 

If  he  had  known  how  his  own  letters  to  her  were  welcomed, 
how  tenderly  they  were  read  and  re-read,  how  sweetly  kept 
and  cherished.  .  .  .  But  he  did  not  know.  He  could  only  look 
ahead,  and  strain  on  to  the  nearing  goal  with  the  great,  dim, 
mysterious  curtain  hanging  beyond  it,  hearing  the  thudding 
of  his  wearied  heart,  and  the  whistling  of  those  sharp  breaths 
in  his  strained  lungs,  and  the  measured  sound  of  his  own 
footfalls  bearing  him  on  to  the  end. 

While  night  closed  in  on  her,  fevered  and  wakeful  in  her 
bed,  thinking  of  him,  praying  for  him,  longing  for  the  sight 
and  sound  of  him.  Sleep,  when  it  came  now,  brought  dreams 
less  crystal  than  of  old.  Hued  with  the  fiery  rose  of  opals 
some,  because  in  these  he  loved  her,  and  that  shadowy  woman, 
in  whose  existence  she  only  half-believed,  had  no  part  in  him 
at  all.  But  on  the  night  preceding  the  revelation  she  had  not 
dreamed. 

She  awakened  in  the  grey  of  dawn,  when  the  thrushes  were 
calling,  and  lay  straight  and  still,  listening  to  the  glad  bird- 
voices  from  the  garden,  her  soft,  fringed  eyelids  closed,  her 
white  breasts  gently  heaving,  her  small  feet  crossed,  her  slender, 
bare  arms  pillowing  the  little  Greek  head ;  a  heavy  plait  of  the 
silken  wealth  that  crowned  it  drawn  down  on  either  side  of 
the  sweet,  pale  face  and  the  pure  throat,  intensifying  their 
virginal  beauty.  The  dull  smart  of  loneliness,  the  famished 
ache  of  loss,  were  gone  altogether.  She  felt  strangely  peace- 
ful and  calm  and  glad.  Then  she  knew  she  was  not  at 
Herion;  she  was  not  even  in  London.  .  .  .  She  was  back  at 
the  Convent,  in  the  little  whitewashed  room  with  the  stained 
deal  furniture — the  room  with  the  pleasant  outlook  on  the 
gardens  that  had  been  hers  from  the  first.  Surely  it  was 
past  the  rising  hour?  Ah,  yes!  but  she  had  had  a  touch  of 
fever.  That  was  why  she  was  lying  here  so  quietly,  with  the 
Mother  sitting  by  the  bed. 

There  could  be  no  doubt  at.  all.  .  .  .  The  light  firm,  pres- 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  577 

sure  that  she  knew  of  old  was  upon  her  bosom,  just  above  the 
beating  of  her  heart.  .  .  .  That  was  always  the  Mother's  way 
of  waking  you.  She  sat  beside  you,  and  looked  at  you,  and 
touched  you,  and  presently  your  eyes  opened,  that  was  all.  .  .  . 
Thinking  this,  a  streak  of  gold  glimmered  between  Lynette's 
thick  brown  lashes;  her  lips  wore  a  smile  of  infinite  content. 
She  stole  a  glance,  and  there  it  was,  the  large,  beautiful,  lightly 
clenched  hand.  The  loose  sleeve  of  thin  black  serge  flowed 
away  from  the  strong,  finely  moulded  wrist ;  the  white  starched 
guimpe  showed  snowy  between  the  drooping  folds  of  the  nun's 
veil.  .  .  .  These  familiar  things  Lynette  drank  in  with  a  sense 
of  unspeakable  content  and  pleasure.  Then — her  eyes  opened 
widely,  and  she  knew. 

She  was  looking  into  eyes  that  had  seen  the  Beatific  Vision 
— great  grey  eyes  that  were  unfathomable  lakes  of  heavenly 
tenderness  and  love  divine.  And  the  face  that  framed  them 
was  a  radiant  pale  splendour,  indescribable  in  its  glorious 
beauty,  unfathomable  in  its  fulfilled  peace.  Her  own  eyes 
drank  peace  from  them,  deeply,  insatiably,  while  the  Herion 
thrushes  sang  their  dewy  matins,  and  the  scent  of  hawthorn- 
blooms  and  syringa  and  early  roses  mingled  with  the  smell  of 
the  sea  stole  in  at  the  open  casement  where  the  white  blind 
bosomed  like  a  breeze-filled  sail. 

How  long  Lynette  lay  there  storing  up  content  and  rapture 
she  did  not  know,  or  want  to  know.  But  at  last  the  wonder 
of  those  eyes  came  nearer — nearer.  She  felt  the  dear  pressure 
of  the  familiar  lips  upon  her  own.  A  fragrance  enveloped  her, 
an  exquisite  joy  overbrimmed  her,  as  a  voice — the  beloved,  un- 
forgotten  voice  of  matchless  music — spoke.  It  said: 

"  Love  him  as  I  loved  your  father.  Be  to  a  child  of  his 
what  I  have  been  to  you." 

Eyes  and  face  and  voice,  white  hand  and  flowing  veil,  were 
all  gone  then.  Lynette  sat  up,  sobbing  for  joy,  and  blindly^ 
holding  out  her  arms,  and  the  rising  sun  looked  over  tha 
mountains  eastward,  and  drew  one  hushing,  golden  finger  over 
the  lips  of  the  cold,  grey,  whispering  sea. 


LXIX 

A  THIN,  subterraneous  screech,   accompanied  by  a  whiff  of 
cinder-flavoured    steam,    heralded    the    Down    Express    as    it 


578  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

plunged  out  of  the  cliff-tunnel,  flashed  across  an  intervening 
space,  and  was  lost  among  the  chestnuts  and  larches.  A  rattle 
and  scroop  told  that  the  official  in  the  box  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Castle  bluff  had  opened  the  points.  And  hearing  the  clank- 
ing bustle  of  the  train's  arrival  in  the  station,  Lynette  reminded 
herself  with  a  sigh  of  relief  that  her  maid  was  packing,  that  she 
would  presently  make  her  excuses  to  Major  Wrynche  and 
Lady  Hannah,  and  that  the  midnight  up-mail  should  take  her 
home  to  him. 

Her  course  lay  clear  now,  pointed  out  by  the  beloved,  lost 
hand.  But  for  this  Heaven-sent  light  that  had  been  cast  upon 
her  way,  Lynette  knew  that  she  might  have  wandered  on  in 
doubt  and  darkness  to  the  very  end. 

She  was  not  of  the  race  of  hero-women,  who  deserve  the 
most  of  men,  and  are  doomed  to  receive  in  grudging  measure. 
A  pliant,  dependent,  essentially  feminine  creature,  she  was 
made  to  lean  and  look  up,  to  be  swayed  and  influenced  by  the 
stronger  nature,  to  be  guided  and  ruled,  and  led,  and  to  love 
the  guide. 

Her  nature  had  flowered:  sun  and  breeze  and  dew  had 
worked  their  miracle  of  form  and  fragrance  and  colour,  the 
ripened  carpels  waited,  conscious  of  the  crown  of  tall  golden- 
powdered  anthers  bending  overhead.  Instead  of  the  homely 
hive-bee  a  messenger  had  come  from  Heaven,  the  air  vibrated 
yet  with  the  beating  of  celestial  wings. 

She  was  going  to  Saxham  to  ask  him  to  forgive  her,  to  throw 
down  the  pitiless  barrier  she  had  reared  between  them  in  her 
ignorance  of  herself  and  of  him.  She  would  humble  herself 
to  entreat  for  that  rejected  crown  of  wifehood.  Even  though 
that  conjectural  other  woman  had  won  Owen  from  her,  she 
said  to  herself  that  she  would  win  him  back  again. 

She  reached  the  wet,  shining  strip  of  creamy  sand  where  the 
frothing  line  of  foam-horses  reared  and  wallowed.  The  prints 
of  her  little  brown  shoes  were  brimmed  with  sea-water,  she 
lifted  her  skirt  daintily,  and  went  forward  still.  Numberless 
delicate  little  winged  shells  were  scattered  over  the  moist  sur- 
face, tenantless  homes  of  tiny  bivalves,  wonderfully  hued. 
Rose-pink,  brilliant  yellow,  tawny-white,  delicate  lilac,  it  was 
as  though  a  lapful  of  blossoms  rifled  from  some  mermaid's  deep- 
sea  garden,  had  been  scattered  by  the  spoiler  at  old  Ocean's 
marge.  Lynette  cried  out  with  pleasure  at  their  beauty,  stooped 
and  gathered  a  palmful,  then  dropped  them.  She  stood  a 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  579 

moment  longer  drinking  in  the  keen,  stinging  freshness,  then 
turned  to  retrace  her  steps,  still  with  that  unseen  companion 
at  her  side. 

The  vast,  undulating  green  and  white  expanse,  save  for  a 
distant  golf-player  with  the  inevitable  ragged  following,  seemed 
bare  of  human  figures.  The  veering  breeze  shepherded  flocks 
of  white  clouds  across  the  harebell-tinted  meadows  of  the  sky. 
It  sang  a  thin,  sweet  song  in  Lynette's  little  rose-tipped  ears. 
And  innumerable  larks  carolled,  building  spiral  towers  of 
melody  on  fields  of  buoyant  air.  And  suddenly  a  human  note 
mingled  with  their  music  and  with  the  thick  drone  of  the  little, 
black-and-grey  humble-bees  that  feasted  on  the  corn  bottles. 
And  Lynette's  visionary  companion  was  upon  the  instant  gone. 

It  was  a  baby's  cooing  chuckle  that  arrested  the  little  brown 
shoes  upon  the  verge  of  a  deep  sand  hollow.  Lynette  looked 
down.  A  pearly-pale  cup  fringed  with  blazing  poppies  held 
the  lost  treasure  of  some  weeping  mother — a  flaxen-headed 
coquette  of  some  eighteen  months  old,  arrayed  in  expensive, 
diaphanous,  now  sadly  crumpled  whiteness,  the  divine  human 
peach  served  up  in  whipped  cream  of  muslin  and  frothy  Valen- 
ciennes. Absorbed  in  delightful  sand-dabbling,  Miss  Baby 
crowed  and  gurgled;  then,  as  a  little  cry  of  womanly  delight 
in  her  beauty  and  womanly  pity  for  her  isolation  broke  from 
Lynette,  she  looked  up  and  laughed  roguishly  in  the  stranger's 
face,  narrowing  her  eyes. 

Naughty,  mischievous  eyes  of  jewel-bright,  grey-green-long- 
shaped  and  thick-lashed,  bold  red,  laughing  mouth.  Where 
had  Lynette  seen  them  before?  With  a  strange  sense  of  re- 
newing an  experience  she  ran  down  into  the  hollow,  and 
dropping  on  her  knees  beside  the  pretty  thing,  caught  it  up 
and  kissed  it  soundly. 

"Where  do  you  come  from,  sweet?"  she  asked,  between  the 
kisses.  "  Where  are  mother  and  nurse  ?  " 

"Ga!"  said  the  baby.  Then,  with  a  sudden  puckering  of 
pearly-golden  brows,  and  a  little  querulous  cry  of  impatience, 
the  Lady  Alyse  Rosabel  Tobart  squirmed  out  of  the  arms  that 
held  her,  exhibiting  in  the  process  the  most  cherubic  of  pink 
legs,  and  the  loveliest  silk  socks  and  kid  shoes,  and  wriggled 
back  into  her  sandy  nest.  Once  re-established  there,  she  an- 
swered no  more  questions,  but  with  truly  aristocratic  com- 
posure resumed  her  interrupted  task  of  stuffing  a  costly  bonnet 
of  embroidered  cambric  and  quilled  lace  with  sand.  When 


58o  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

the  bonnet  would  hold  no  more,  she  had  arranged  to  fill  her 
shoe:  she  was  perfectly  clear  upon  the  point  of  having  no  other 
engagement  so  absorbing. 

Smiling,  Lynette  abandoned  the  attempt  to  question.  Per- 
haps the  missing  guardians  of  this  lost  jewel  were  quite  near 
:after  all,  sitting  with  books  and  work  and  other  babies  in  the 
shelter  of  some  neighbouring  hollow,  from  whence  this  daring 
adventurer  had  escaped  unseen.  .  .  .  She  ran  up  the  steep  side 
where  the  frieze  of  poppies  nodded  against  the  blue  sky,  and 
the  white  sand  streamed  back  from  under  the  little  brown 
shoes  that  Saxham  had  so  often  longed  to  kiss. 

No  one  was  near.  Only  in  the  distance,  toiling  over  the  dry 
waves  of  the  sand-dunes  towards  the  steep  ascent  by  which  the 
hilly  main  street  of  Herion  may  be  gained,  went  a  white 
perambulator,  canopied  with  white,  and  propelled  by  a  nurse 
in  starched  white  skirts  and  flying  white  bonnet-strings — a 
nurse  who  kept  her  head  well  down,  and  was  evidently  reading 
a  novel  as  she  went.  Some  yards  in  advance  a  red  umbrella 
bobbed  against  the  breeze  like  a  giant  poppy  on  a  very  short 
stem.  The  lady  who  carried  the  flaming  object  was  young; 
that  much  was  plain,  for  the  fluttering  heliotrope  chiffons  of 
her  gown  were  held  at  a  high,  perhaps  at  an  unnecessarily  lofty, 
altitude  above  the  powdery  sand,  and  her  plumply-filled  and 
gleaming  stockings  of  scarlet,  fantastically  barred  with  black, 
and  her  dainty  little  high-heeled  shoes  were  very  much  in  evi- 
dence as  they  topped  a  rising  crest.  Then  they  disappeared 
over  the  farther  edge,  the  red  umbrella  followed,  and  the  nurse, 
in  charging  up  the  steep  after  her  mistress,  discovered,  perhaps 
by  a  glance  of  investigation  underneath  the  canopy,  prompted 
by  a  too  tardy  realization  of  the  suspicious  lightness  of  the 
perambulator,  that  the  shell  was  void  of  the  pearl. 

Lynette  heard  the  wretched  woman's  piercing  shriek, 
glimpsed  the  red  umbrella  as  it  reappeared  over  the  sand-crest, 
realized  the  horrible  consternation  of  mistress  and  maid.  She 
must  signal  them — cry  out.  .  .  .  Involuntarily  she  gave  the 
call  of  the  Kaffir  herd:  the  shrill,  prolonged  ululation  that 
carries  from  spitzkop  to  spitzkop  across  a  mile  of  karroo  or 
high-grass  veld  between.  And  she  unpinned  her  hat  and  waved 
it,  standing  amongst  the  thickly-growing  poppies  and  chamomile 
on  the  high  crest  of  the  sand-wave,  while  her  shadow — a  squat, 
blue  dwarf  with  arms  out  of  all  proportion — flourished  and 
gesticulated  at  her 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  581 


LXX 

IT  is  Fate  who  comes  hurrying  to  Lynette  under  the  becom- 
ing shadow  of  a  red  umbrella,  on  the  starched  and  rustling 
skirts  of  the  agitated  nurse,  whose  mouth  is  seen  to  be  shaping 
sentences  long  before  she  can  be  heard  panting: 

"Did  you  call,  'm?  Her  ladyship  thought  you  did,  and 
might  have  found.  .  .  .  Oh,  ma'am!  have  you  seen  a  baby? 
We've  lost  ours!  " 

Lynette  nods  and  laughs  reassuringly,  pointing  down  into 
the  hollow.  The  nurse,  with  a  squawk  of  relief,  leaves  her 
perambulator  bogged  in  the  sand,  flutters  up  the  powdery  rise 
like  some  large  species  of  seagulls,  squawks  again,  and  swoops 
to  retrieve  her  lost  charge.  Miss  Baby,  perfectly  contented  until 
the  scarlet  face  and  whipping  ribbons  of  her  attendant  appear 
over  the  edge  of  her  Paradise,  throws  herself  backwards, 
strikes  out  with  kicking,  dimpled  legs,  and  sets  up  an  indignant 
roar. 

"There  now — there!  'A  was  a  pessus!  "  vociferates  the 
owner  of  the  streaming  ribbons  and  the  scarlet  countenance. 
"  And  did  she  tumble  out  of  her  pram,  the  duck,  and  wicked 
Polly  never  see  her?  And  thank  Good  Gracious,  not  a  bruise 
on  her  blessed  little  body-woddy,  nor  nothing  but  the  very 
tiddiest  scratch!" 

"  Which  is  not  your  fault,  Watkins,  I  am  compelled  to  say 
it,"  pronounces  the  Red  Umbrella,  arriving  breathless  and  de- 
cidedly indignant,  on  the  scene.  "The  idea  of  a  person  of 
your  class  being  so  wrapped  up  in  a  rotten  penny  novel  that 
you  can't  even  keep  your  eye  upon  the  darling  entrusted  to  your 
charge  is  too  perfectly  shameful  for  words.  Baby,  don't  cry," 
she  continues,  as  the  repentant  Polly  appears,  bearing  the  re- 
trieved treasure.  "  Come  to  mummy  and  kiss  her,  and  tell  her 
all  about  it,  do!  " 

"  I  sa-t!  "  bellows  Baby,  now  keenly  alive  to  the  pathos  of 
the  situation,  and  digging  a  sandy-pink  fist  into  either  eye.  .  .  . 

"Don't  then,  you  obstinate  little  pig!"  returns  Red 
Umbrella,  with  maternal  asperity.  She  looks  up  to  the  fair 
vision  that  stands  on  high  amongst  the  poppies,  and  nods  and 
smiles.  "  However  I  am  to  thank  you.  .  .  .  Such  a  turn 
when  we  missed  her.  .  .  ."  She  utters  these  incoherences 
with  a  great  deal  of  eye-play,  pressing  a  small,  plump,  jewelled 
hand,  with  short,  broad  fingers,  and  squat,  though  elaborately 


582  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

rouged  and  polished,  nails,  upon  the  bountiful  curve  of  a 
Parisian  corsage.  "  My  heart  did  a  double  flip-flap  .  .  . 
hasn't  done  thumping  yet.  Am  I  pale  still,  Watkins?"  She 
appeals  to  the  recreant  Watkins,  who  is  busily  repacking  Baby 
in  her  luxurious  perambulator.  "  I  felt  to  go  as  white  as 
chalk!" 

"Perfect  gassly,  my  lady!"  agrees  Watkins,  and  it  occurs 
to  Lyner.tc  that  the  process  of  blanching  must,  taking  into  con- 
sideration the  artificial  blushes  that  bloom  so  thickly  upon  the 
pretty,  piquant  face  under  the  red  umbrella,  have  been  at- 
tended with  some  difficulty. 

Everything  is  round  in  the  coquettish  face,  shaded  by  a  hat 
that  is  an  expensive  triumph  of  Parisian  millinery,  trimmed 
with  a  whole  branch  of  wistaria  in  bloom.  The  big  brown 
eyes  are  round,  so  is  the  cherry-stained  mouth,  so  is  the  pert, 
button  nose.  The  thick,  dark  eyebrows  are  like  inky  half- 
moons,  in  the  middle  of  the  little  round  chin  a  circular  dimple 
is  cunningly  set.  Round,  pinky-olive  shoulders  and  rounded 
arms  gleam  temptingly  through  the  bodice  of  heliotrope  chiffon. 
Other  roundnesses,  artfully  exaggerated  by  the  Parisian  modiste, 
are  liberally  suggested,  as  Red  Umbrella  gathers  her  frothy 
draperies  about  her  hips,  lifting  her  multitudinous  frills  to  re- 
veal black  and  scarlet  openwork  silk  stockings,  ending  in  tiny, 
plump  feet,  whose  high-heeled  silver-buckled  walking-shoes  are 
sinking  in  the  hot,  white,  powdery  sand. 

"Please  don't  go  on!  I  haven't  half  thanked  you,"  she 
pleads,  still  pressing  the  podgy  little  bejewelled  paw  upon  the 
heaving  corsage.  Then  she  sinks,  with  an  air  of  graceful 
languor,  down  upon  a  long,  prostrate  monolith  of  granite,  that 
is  thickly  crusted  with  velvety  orange  lichen  and  grey-green 
moss,  starred  with  infinitesimal  yellow  flowers.  And  Lynette, 
habitually  courteous  and  rather  amused,  and  not  at  all  unwill- 
ing-to  know  a  little  more  of  the  affected,  slangy,  overdressed 
little  woman,  sits  down  upon  the  other  end  of  the  sprawling 
stone  pillar,  and  says,  smiling  at  Baby,  who  is  clutching  at  a 
hovering  butterfly  with  her  eager,  dimpled  hands: 

"  Of  course,  it  was  a  terrible  shock  to  you  when  you  missed 
her.  She  is  such  a  darling.  Aren't  you,  Baby?" 

Baby,  her  long,  grey-green  eyes  melting  and  gleaming  danger- 
ously, her  golden  head  tilted  coquettishly,  and  a  gay,  provok- 
ing laugh  on  the  bold  red  mouth,  makes  another  snatch,  cap- 
tures the  hovering  blue  butterfly,  opens  the  rosy  hand,  and  with 
a  wry  face  of  disgust,  drops  the  crushed  morsel  over  the  edge 


ONE   BRAVER  THING  583 

of  the  perambulator.  The  superb,  unconscious  cruelty  of  the 
act  gives  Lynette  a  little  pang  even  as  she  goes  on : 

"  She  was  not  in  the  least  shy.  I  think  we  should  soon  be 
very  great  friends.  May  her  nurse  bring  her  to  see  me  some- 
times? Most  babies  love  flowers,  and  there  is  a  garden  full  of 
them  where  I  am  staying.  Do  you  live  here?  " 

"  Live  here  ?  Gracious  no ! "  Red  Umbrella  opens  the 
round,  brown  eyes  that  Baby's  are  so  unlike  in  shape  and  ex- 
pression, and  shrugs  her  pretty  shoulders  as  high  as  the  big 
ruby  buttons  that  blaze  in  her  pretty  ears.  "  Me  and  Baby 
are  only  visiting — stopping  with  her  nurse  and  my  two  maids 
for  a  change  at  the  Herion  Arms — me  having  been  recom- 
mended sea-air  by  the  doctors  for  tonsils  in  the  throat.  The 
house  is  advertised  as  an  up-to-date  hotel  in  the  ABC  Railway 
Guide,  but  diggings  more  wretched  I  never  struck,  and  you 
do  fetch  up  in  some  queer  places  on  tour  in  the  Provinces,  let 
alone  the  States,"  says  Red  Umbrella,  tossing  the  wistaria- 
wreathed  hat,  "  which  may  be  a  surprise  to  people  who  think 
it  must  be  nothing  but  jam  for  those  ladies  and  gentlemen  that 
have  made  their  mark  in  the  profession." 

"Yes?" 

Lynette's  golden  eyes  smile  back  into  the  laughing  brown 
ones  with  pleasant  friendliness,  combined  with  an  irritating 
lack  of  comprehension.  And  Red  Umbrella,  who  derives  a 
considerable  income  from  percentages  upon  the  sale  of  her 
photographs,  and  is  conscious  that  her  celebrated  features  are 
figuring  upon  several  of  the  postcards  that  hang  up  for  sale  in 
the  window  of  the  only  stationer  in  Herion,  is  a  little  nettled. 

"  I  refer  to  the  stage,  of  course."  She  fingers  a  long  neck- 
chain  of  sapphires,  and  tinkles  her  innumerable  bangles  with 
their  load  of  porte-bonheurs.  "  But  perhaps  you're  not  a  Lon- 
doner? Or  you  don't  patronize  the  theatre?" 

"  Oh,  yes.  We  have  a  house  in  Harley  Street.  And  I  am 
very  fond  of  the  Opera,"  says  Lynette,  smiling  still,  "  and  of 
seeing  plays  too ;  and  I  often  go  to  the  theatre  with  Lord  and 
Lady  Castleclare,  or  Major  Wrychne  and  Lady  Hannah, 
when  my  husband  is  too  much  engaged  to  take  me.  One  of 
the  last  pieces  we  saw  before  we  left  town  was  '  The  Chiffon 
Girl '  at  the  Variety,"  she  adds. 

"Indeed!  And  how  did  you  Hire  'The  Chiffon  Girl'?" 
asks  the  lady  of  the  red  umbrella,  with  a  gracious  and  en- 
couraging smile.  Unconscious  tribute  rendered  to  one's  beauty 
and  one's  genius  is  ever  well  worth  the  having.  And  the  edi- 


584  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

tor  of  the  Keyhole,  a  certain  weekly  journal  of  caterings  for 
the  curious,  will  gladly  publish  any  little  anecdote  which  will 
serve  the  dual  purpose  of  amusing  his  readers  and  keeping  the 
name  of  Miss  Lessie  Lavigne  before  the  public  eye.  "  How 
did  you  enjoy  the  performance  of  the  lady  who  played  the 
part?" 

Lynette  ponders,  and  her  fine  brows  knit.  Vexed  and  in- 
dignant, Red  Umbrella,  scanning  the  thoughtful  face,  admits 
its  youth,  its  high-breeding,  its  delicate,  chiselled  beauty,  and 
the  slender  grace  of  the  supple  figure  in  the  grey-blue  serge 
skirt  and  white  silk  blouse;  nor  is  she  slow  to  appreciate  the 
value  of  the  diamond  keeper  on  the  slight,  fine,  ungloved  hand 
that  rests  upon  the  sun-hot  moss  between  them. 

"  I  think  I  felt  rather  sorry  for  her,"  says  the  soft  cultured 
voice  with  the  exquisite,  precise  inflections.  The  golden  eyes 
look  dreamily  out  over  the  undulating  sand-dunes  beyond  the 
crisp  line  of  foam  to  the  silken  shimmer  of  the  smoothing  water. 
The  little  wind  has  fallen.  It  is  very  still.  The  nurse,  sitting 
on  a  hillock  of  bents  in  dutiful  nearness  to  the  perambulator, 
has  taken  out  her  paper-covered  volume,  and  is  deep  in  a  story 
of  blood  and  woe.  And  Baby,  a  sleepy,  pink  rosebud,  dozes 
among  her  white  embroidered  pillows,  undisturbed  by  Red 
Umbrella's  shrill  exclamation: 

"  Sorry  for  her!     Why  on  earth  should  you  be?" 

The  shriek  startles  Lynette.  She  brings  back  the  grey  eyes 
from  the  distance,  flushing  faint  coral  pink  to  the  red-brown 
waves  at  her  fair  temples. 

"  She — she  had  on  so  few  clothes,"  she  says.  And  there  is 
a  profound  silence,  broken  by  Lessie  saying  with  icy  dignity: 

"  If  the  Lord  Chamberlain  opined  I'd  got  enough  on,  I 
expect  that  ought  to  do  for  you !  " 

"  I — don't  quite  understand." 

Lynette  opens  her  golden  eyes  in  sincere  wonder  at  the  mar- 
vellous change  that  has  been  wrought  in  the  little  lady  who  sits 
beside  her. 

"I  am  Miss  Lessie  Lavigne,"  says  the  little  lady,  with  an 
angry  toss  of  the  pretty  head,  adorned  with  the  wistaria- 
trimmed  hat.  "  At  least,  that  is  the  name  I  am  known  by  in  the 
profession." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  Lynette  falters.  "  I  did  not  recognize 
you.  I  am  afraid  you  must  think  me  rather  rude." 

"Oh,  pray  don't  mention  it!"  cries  the  owner  of  the  red 
umbrella.  "Rude? — not  in  the  least  I" 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  585 

Mere  rudeness  would  be  preferable,  infinitely,  to  the  outrage 
the  little  lady  has  suffered.  She,  Lessie  Lavigne,  the  original 
exponent  of  the  role  of  "The  Chiffon  Girl,"  the  idol  of  the 
pit  and  gallery,  Queen  regnant  over  the  hearts  beating  behind 
the  polished  shirt-fronts  in  the  stalls,  has  lived  to  hear  herself 
pitied — not  envied,  but  commiserated — for  the  scantiness  of  the 
costume  in  which  it  is  alike  her  privilege  and  her  joy  to  trill 
and  caper  seven  times  in  the  week  before  her  patrons  and 
adorers.  Small  wonder  that  she  feels  her  carefully  manicured 
nails  elongating  with  the  desire  to  scratch  and  rend. 

Then  she  reveals  the  chief  arrow  in  her  quiver.  Not  for 
nothing  is  she  the  widow  of  a  Peer  of  Great  Britain.  With 
all  the  hereditary  dignities  of  the  Foltlebarres  she  will  arm 
herself,  and  reduce  this  presuming  stranger  to  the  level  of  the 
dust.  At  the  thought  of  the  humiliation  it  is  in  her  power 
to  inflict  she  smiles  quite  pleasantly,  displaying  a  complete 
double  row  of  beautifully  stopped  teeth.  And  she  says,  as  she 
fumbles  in  a  chatelaine  bag  of  golden  links,  studded  with  tur- 
quoises, and  with  elaborately  ostentatious  dignity  produces 
therefrom  a  card-case,  as  precious  as  regards  material,  and  em- 
blazoned with  a  monogram  and  coronet,  enriched  with 
diamonds  and  pearls: 

"  I  think  you  mentioned  that  you  lived  in  the  neighbour- 
hood? May  I  know  who  I  have  the  a — pleasure  of  being  in- 
debted to  for  finding  my  daughter  to-day?" 

"  I  am  Mrs.  Owen  Saxham.  I  live  at  that  grey  stone  house 
up  there  on  the  cliff.  '  Plas  Bendigaid,'  they  call  it,"  explains 
Lynette,  a  little  nervously,  as  her  reluctant  eyes  dwell  upon  the 
face  and  figure  of  the  woman  who  was  Beauvayse's  wife.  The 
encounter  is  distasteful  to  her.  She  is  even  conscious  of  a 
latent  feeling  of  antagonism  and  dislike.  "  It  belongs  to  my 
husband,  and  this  is  my  first  visit  to  Herion,  because  we — my 
husband  and  I — have  not  been  very  long  married.  But  I  like 
the  place  very  much.  And  the  house  is  charming,  within  as 
without,  and  there  is  a  hall  that  wras  once  the  chapel,  when  it 
was  a  Convent.  It  shall  be  a  chapel  again;  that  is" — the 
wild-rose  colour  deepens  on  the  lovely  face — "  if  my  husband 
agrees?  To  have  it  so  restored  would  make  the  house  seem 
more  like  a  home,  because  I  was  brought  up  in  a  Convent, 
though  not  in  England." 

Her  eyes  stray  back  to  the  sun-kissed  beauty  of  Nantmadoc 
Bay  and  the  dotted  line  of  white  spots  that  signify  the  town  of 
St.  Tud walls  at  the  base  of , the  green  promontory  beyond  the 


586  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

Roads.  She  forgets  that  this  little  overdressed  person  is 
Beauvayse's  wife.  She  forgets  in  the  moment  that  she  herself 
is  Saxham's.  She  is  back  in  the  beloved  past,  with  the  Mother. 

"  It  was  in  South  Africa,  my  Convent  .  .  .  more  than  a 
thousand  miles  from  Cape  Town,  in  British  Baraland,  on  the 
Transvaal  Border — a  tiny  village  dumped  down  in  the  middle 
of  the  veld." 

"What  on  earth  is  the  veld?"  asks  the  lady  of  the  red 
umbrella,  with  acerbity.  "  I'm  sick  of  seeing  the  word  in  the 
papers,  and  nobody  seems  to  know  what  it  means." 

Lynette's  soft  voice  answers: 

"  You  can  never  know  what  it  means  until  you  have  lived 
its  life,  and  it  has  become  part  of  yours.  It  spreads  away 
farther  than  your  eyes  can  follow  it,  for  miles  and  miles.  It 
is  jade  colour  in  spring,  blue-green  in  early  summer,  desolate, 
scorched  yellow-brown  in  winter,  with  dreadful  black  tracts  of 
cinders,  where  it  has  been  burned  to  let  the  young  grass  grow 
up.  There  is  hardly  a  tree;  there  is  scarcely  a  bird,  except  a 
vulture,  a  black  speck  high  in  the  hot  blue  sky.  There  are 
flat-topped  mountains  and  cone-shaped  kopjes,  reddish,  or  pale 
pink,  or  mauve  coloured,  as  they  are  nearer  or  farther  away. 
And  that  is  all." 

"All?" 

"All,  except  the  sunshine,  bathing  everything,  soaking  you 
through  and  through." 

"  But.  there  is  not  always  sunshine  ?  It  must  be  sometimes 
night,"  argues  Lessie,  a  little  peevishly. 

"  There  are  deep  violet  nights,  full  of  great  white  stars," 
Lynette  answers.  "  There  are  storms  of  dust  and  rain,  light- 
ning and  thunder,  such  as  are  only  read  of  here.  .  .  .  There 
are  plots,  conspiracies,  raids,  robberies,  murders,  slumps  and 
losses,  plagues  and  massacres.  There  are  rebellions  of  white 
men,  and  native  risings.  There  has  been  War;  there  have 
been  wars.  There  is  War  to-day,  and  there  will  be  War  again 
in  the  days  to  come !  " 

She  had  almost  forgotten  the  little  woman  beside  her,  staring 
at  her,  with  big,  brown,  rather  animal  eyes.  Now  she  turns 
to  her  with  her  rare  and  lovely  smile: 

"  The  war  that  is  going  on  now  began  at  the  little  village- 
town  where  I  was  a  Convent  schoolgirl.  We  were  shut  for 
months  within  the  lines.  But,  of  course,  you  have  read  the 
newspaper  accounts  of  the  Siege  of  Gueldersdorp  ?  I  am  only 
telling  you  what  you  know." 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  587 

Lessie  laughs,  and  the  laugh  has  the  hard,  unpleasant,  mirth- 
less little  tinkle  of  a  toy  dog's  collar-bell,  or  bits  of  crushed  ice 
rattled  in  a  champagne-glass. 

"  What  I  have  good  reason  to  know." 

Her  podgy,  jewelled  hands  are  clenching  and  unclenching 
in  her  heliotrope  chiffon  lap;  there  is  a  well-defined  scowl  be- 
tween the  black  arched  eyebrows,  and  the  murky  light  of  battle 
gleams  in  the  eyes  that  no  longer  languish  between  their  bistred 
eyelids  as  she  scans  the  pure  pale  face  under  the  sweep  of  her 
heavily  blackened  lashes.  She  would  give  the  ruby  buttons  out 
of  her  ears  to  see  it  wince  and  quiver,  and  crimson  into  shamed 
blushes.  And  yet  Lessie  is  rather  amiable  than  otherwise  in 
her  attitude  towards  other  women.  True,  she  has  never  be- 
fore met  one  who  had  the  insolence  to  pity  her  to  her  face. 

"  I  quite  feel  I  know  you,"  she  says,  with  an  exaggerated 
affection  of  amiability,  and  in  high,  fashionable  accents,  "  you 
having  been  at  Gueldersdorp  through  the  siege  and  all.  Were 
you  ever — I  suppose  you  must  have  been  sometimes — shot  at 
with  a  gun  ?  " 

The  faintest  quiver  of  a  smile  comes  over  the  lovely  face 
her  grudging  eyes  are  trying  to  find  a  flaw  in. 

"  Often  when  I  have  been  crossing  the  veld  between  the 
town  and  the  Hospital,  the  Mauser  bullets  have  hummed  past 
like  bees,  and  raised  little  spurts  of  dust  close  by  my  feet  where 
they  had  hit  the  ground.  And  once  a  shell  burst  close  to  us, 
and  a  piece  knocked  off  my  hat  and  tore  a  corner  off  her 
veil " 

"  Weren't  you  in  a  petrified  fright  ?  "  demands  Lessie. 

"  I  was  with  her." 

"Who  was  she?" 

A  swift  change  of  sudden,  quickening,  poignant  emotion 
passes  over  the  still  face.  A  sudden  swelling  of  the  white 
throat,  a  rising  mist  in  the  golden  eyes,  suggests  to  Lessie 
that  she  has  been  fortunate  enough  to  touch  upon  a  painful 
subject,  and  that  possibly  this  presumptuous  young  woman  who 
has  pitied  a  Peeress  may  be  going  to  cry.  But  Lynette  drives 
back  the  tears. 

"  She  was  the  Reverend  Mother,  the  Mother-Superior  of 
the  Convent  where  I  lived  at  Gueldersdorp." 

"  Where  is  she  now  ?  " 

"  She  is^vith  God." 

Lessie  is  oddly  nonplussed  by  the  calm,  direct  answer. 
People  who  talk  in  that  strangely  familiar  way  of — of  subjects 


588  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

that  properly  belong  to  parsons  are  rare  in  her  world.  She 
hastens  to  put  her  next  question. 

"  Was  yours  the  only  Convent  in  Gueldersdorp  where  young 
ladies  were  taught?" 

"  It  is  the  only  Convent  there." 

"  Did  you  know — among  the  pupils — a  young  person  by  the 
name  of  Mildare?  " 

There  is  such  concentrated  essence  of  spite  in  Lessie's  utter- 
ance of  the  name  that  Lynette  winces  a  little,  and  the  faint, 
sweet  colour  rises  in  her  cheeks. 

"  I — know  her,  certainly ;  as  far  as  one  can  be  said  to  know 
oneself.  My  unmarried  name  was  Mildare." 

"  You — don't  say  so !     Lord,  how  funny !  " 

The  seagulls  fishing  in  the  shallows  beyond  the  foam-line 
rise  up  affrighted  by  the  shrill  peal  of  triumphant  laughter 
with  which  Lessie  makes  her  discovery. 

"  Ha,  ha,  ha!  Talk  of  a  situation!  .  .  .  On  the  boards  I've 
never  seen  one  to  touch  it!"  She  jumps  from  the  boulder, 
with  more  bounce  than  dignity,  dropping  the  red  umbrella  and 
the  jewelled  card-case,  and,  extending  in  one  pudgy  ringed  hand 
a  coroneted  card,  "  Permit  me  to  introduce  myself,"  she  says 
through  set  teeth,  smiling  rancorously.  "  My  professional 
name,  as  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  explaining  to  you,  is  Lessie 
Lavigne,  but  in  private" — the  dignity  of  the  speaker  is  marred 
by  extreme  huffiness — "  in  private  I  am  the  Countess  of  Beau- 
vayse." 

As  Lynette  looks  in  the  painted,  angry,  piquant  face  she  com- 
prehends the  secret  of  its  familiarity.  She  is  conscious  of  a 
faint  distaste,  but  of  no  active  repulsion.  Then  her  eyes,  turn- 
ing from  it,  encounter  the  cherub  rosily  sleeping  on  embroidered 
pillows,  and  a  rush  of  blood  colours  her  to  her  hair.  His  child 
— his  child  by  the  dancer — this  dimpled  creature  she  has  clasped 
and  kissed.  The  icy,  tinkling  giggle  of  the  mother  breaks  in 
upon  the  thought. 

"  Of  all  the  queer  starts  I  ever  struck,  I  do  call  this  the 
queerest !  Me,  meeting  you  like  this,  and  both  of  us  pal-ing  on ! 
All  over  Baby,  too.  .  .  .  Lord!  isn't  it  enough  to  make  you 
die?  Don't  mind  me  being  a  bit  hysterical!"  Lady  Beau- 
vayse  dabs  her  tearful  eyes  with  a  cobwebby  square  of  laced 
cambric.  "  It'll  be  over  in  a  sec.  And  then,  Miss  Mildare 
— I  beg  pardon — Mrs.  Saxham — you  and  me  will  have  it 
out!" 

"I  ana  afraid  I  must  be  going."     Lynette  rises  and  stands 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  589 

beside  Lessie,  looking  down  in  painful  hesitation  at.  the  work- 
ing eyebrows  and  the  blinking,  reddened  eyelids.  *'  I  have 
guests  waiting  for  me  at  the  Plas.  And  would  it  not  be  wise 
of  you  to  go  home  and  lie  down  ?  " 

The  words,  for  some  obscure  reason  or  other,  convey  an  in- 
tolerable sting.  Lessie  jumps  in  her  buckled  Louis  Quinze 
shoes,  wheels,  and  confronts  her  newly-discovered  enemy  with 
glaring  eyes. 

"  Go  home  .  .  .  lie  down !  "  she  shrieks,  so  shrilly  that  the 
sleeping  cherub  awakens,  and  adds  her  frightened  roars  to  the 
clamour  that  scares  the  gulls.  "  If  I  had  lain  down  and  gone 
to  my  long  home  eighteen  months  ago,  when  you  were  cooped 
up  in  Gueldersdorp  with  my  husband,  it  would  have  suited  you 
both  down  to  the  ground ! "  She  turns,  with  a  stamp  of  her 
imperious  little  foot  upon  the  scared  nurse,  who  is  vainly  en- 
deavouring to  still  Baby.  "Take  her  away!  Carry  her  out 
of  hearing!  Do  what  you're  told,  you  silly  fool!"  she  orders. 
"  And  you " — she  wheels  again  upon  Lynette,  her  wistarias 
nodding,  her  chains  and  bangles  clanking — "  why  do  you  stand 
there  like  a  white  deer  in  a  park — like  a  creature  cut  out  of 
ivory?  Don't  you  understand  that  I,  the  woman  you  pitied — 
my  God!  pitied,  for  singing  and  dancing  on  the  public  stage 
'  with  so  few  clothes  on '  " — she  savagely  mimics  the  manner 
and  tone — "  I  am  the  lawful  wife  of  the  man  you  tried  to  trap 
— the  Right  Honourable  John  Basil  Edward  Tobart!"  The 
painted  lips  sneer  savagely.  "  Beautiful  Beau,  who  never  went 
back  on  a  man  or  told  the  truth  to  a  woman — that's  his  char- 
acter, and  it  pretty  well  sizes  him  up. 

Lessie  stops,  gasping  and  out  of  breath,  the  plump,  jewelled 
hand  clutching  at  her  heaving  bosom.  The  theatrical  instinct 
in  the  daughter  of  the  footlights  has  led  her  to  work  up  the 
scene;  but  her  rage  of  wounded  love  and  jealousy  is  genuine 
enough,  though  not  as  real  as  the  innocence  in  the  eyes  that 
meet  hers,  less  poignant  than  the  shame  and  indignation  that 
drive  the  blood  from  those  ivory  cheeks. 

"  He  married  me  on  the  strict  QT  at  the  Registrar's  at  Cook- 
ham,"  goes  on  Lessie,  her  mouth  twisting,  "  a  fortnight  before 
he  was  ordered  out  on  the  Staff.  We'd  been  friends  for  over 
a  year.  There  was  a  child  coming,  since  we're  by  way  of  being 
plain-spoken,"  says  Lessie,  picking  up  the  prostrate  red  umbrella 
and  the  jewelled  card-case,  possibly  to  conceal  a  blush;  "and 
he  swore  he'd  never  look  at.  another  woman,  and  write  by  every 
mail.  And  so  he  did  at  firs^  and  I  used  to  cry  over  the  bloom- 


590  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

ing  piffle  he  put  into  his  letters,  and  wish  I'd  been  a  straighter 
\voman,  for  his  sake.  And  then  the  Siege  began,  and  the  letters 
stopped  coming,  and  I  cried  enough  to  spoil  my  voice,  little 
thinking  how  my  husband  was  playing  the  giddy  bachelor  thou- 
sands of  miles  away.  And  then  came  the  news  of  the  Relief, 
and  despatches,  saying  that  he  " — her  pretty  face  is  distorted 
by  the  wry  grimace  of  genuine  anguish — "  he  was  killed!  And 
ta  month  later  I  got  a  copy  of  a  rotten  Siege  newspaper,  sent  me 
by  I  don't  know  who,  and  never  shall,  with  a  flowery  para- 
graph in  it,  announcing  his  lordship's  engagement,  to  Miss  some- 
thing Mildare.  Oh,  it  was  merry  hell  to  know  how  he'd  done 
me — me  that  worshipped  the  very  ground  he  trod!  .  .  .  Me 
that  had  made  a  Judy  of  myself  in  crape  and  weepers — widow's 
weepers  for  the  man  that  wished  me  dead !  " 

Her  voice  is  thick  with  rage.  Her  face  is  convulsed.  Her 
eyes  are  burning  coals.  She  has  never  been  so  nearly  a  great 
actress,  this  meretricious  little  dancer  and  comedian,  as  in  this 
moment  when  she  forgets  her  art. 

"  Picture  it,  you !  .  .  .  Don't  you  fancy  me  in  'em  ?  Don't 
you  see  me  in  my  bedroom  tearing  them  off?  "  She  rends  her 
flimsy  cobweb  of  a  handkerchief  into  tatters  and  spurns  them 
from  her.  "  So !  .  .  .  so !  .  .  .  that's  what  I  did  to  'em !  " 
She  snarls  with  a  sudden  access  of  tigerishness.  "  And  if  that 
white  face  of  yours  had  been  within  reach  of  my  ten  fingers, 
I'd  have  ragged  it  into  ribbons  like  the  blooming  fallals.  Don't 
dare  to  tell  me  you'd  not  have  done  the  same !  Perhaps,  though, 
you  wouldn't.  You're  a  lady,  born  and  bred,"  owns  Lessie 
grudgingly,  "  and  I  was  a  jobbing  tailor's  kid,  that  worked  to 
keep  myself  and  other  folks  as  a  baby  imp  in  Pantomime,  while 
you  were  being  coddled  up  and  kept  in  cotton-wool." 

She  ends  with  a  husky  laugh  and  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders. 
The  swollen  face  with  the  wet  eyes  is  averted,  or  Lessie  might 
be  roused  to  fresh  resentment  by  the  tenderness  of  pity  that  is 
dawning  in  Lynette's. 

"  You  have  suffered  cruelly,  Lady  Beauvayse ;  but  I  was  not 
knowingly  or  wilfully  to  blame.  Please  try  to  believe  it!  " 

Lessie  blows  her  small  nose  with  a  toot  of  incredulity,  and 
says  through  an  intervening  wad  of  damp  lace-edged  cambric: 

'^Goon!" 

"  I  met  Lord  Beauvayse  out  at  Gueldersdorp."  The  voice 
that  comes  from  Lynette's  pale  lips  is  singularly  level  and  quiet. 
"  He  was  very  handsome  and  very  brave;  he  was  an  officer  of 
the  Colonel's  Staff.  He  asked  me  to  marry  him,  and  I — I 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  59* 

believed  him  honourable  and  true,  and  I  said,  'Yes.'  .  .  . 
That  was  one  Sunday,  when  we  were  sitting  by  the  river.  On 
Thursday  he  was  kflled,  and  later — nearly  a  year  after  my 
marriage  to  Dr.  Saxham — I  found  out  the  truth." 

Lessie  shrugs  her  pretty  shoulders,  but  the  face  and  voice  of 
the  speaker  have  brought  conviction.  She  thinks  that  if  she 
had  been  injured,  her  rival  has  suffered  equal  wrong. 

"  You  were  pretty  quick  in  taking  on  another  man,  it  strikes 
me.  But  that's  not  my  business.  You  say  you  found  out." 
She  shows  her  admirably  preserved  teeth  in  a  little  grin  of 
sardonic  contempt — "  nearly  a  year  after  your  marriage.  Don't 
tell  me  your  husband  let  you  go  on  burning  joss-sticks  to  Beau's 
angelic  memory  when  he  might,  have  made  you  spit  on  it  by 
telling  you  the  truth !  " 

Lynette's  lip  curls,  and  she  lifts  her  little  head  proudly. 

"  He  never  once  hinted  at  the  truth.  Nor  was  it  through  him 
I  learned  it." 

"  Ought  to  be  kept  under  glass,  then,"  comments  Lessie,  "  as 
a  model  husband.  Now,  my  poor " 

Lynette  interrupts,  with  angry  emphasis: 

"  I  will  not  hear  Dr.  Saxham  mentioned  in  the  same  breath 
with  Lord  Beauvayse !  " 

"  He's  dead — let  him  be!"  Beau's  widow  snarls,  her  mouth 
twisting.  Yet  in  the  same  breath,  with  another  of  the  mental 
pirouettes  characteristic  of  her  class  and  type,  she  adds :  "  Do 
you  suppose  I  don't  know  my  own  husband?  Take  him  one 
way  with  another,  you  might  have  sifted  the  world  for  liars, 
and  never  found  the  equal  of  Beau." 

She  gathers  up  the  red  umbrella  and  the  jewelled  card-case 
with  reviving  briskness,  and  shakes  out  her  crumpled  chiffons 
in  the  bright  hot  sun. 

"  Me  and  Baby  are  leaving  to-morrow.  I  don't  suppose 
we're  likely  ever  to  come  across  you  again.  Good-bye.  I  for- 
give you  for  pitying  me,"  she  says  frankly,  holding  out  the 
plump,  over-jewelled  hand.  "  As  for  the  other  grudge.  ,  .  . 
What,  are  you  going  to  kiss  me?  .  .  .  Give  Baby  another 
before  you  go,  dear  .  .  .  and  .  .  .  forgive  him  when  you 
can." 

LXXI 

LYNETTE  sat  still  upon  the  boulder,  thinking,  long  after  the 
red  umbrella  had  departed.  While  it  was  yet  visible  in  the 


592  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

white-hot  distance,  hovering  like  some  gaudy  Brobdingnagian 
butterfly  in  advance  of  the  white  perambulator  pushed  by  the 
white-clad  nurse,  the  heads  of  two  little  shabbyish,  youngish 
people  of  the  unmistakable  Cockney  tourist  type  rose  over  the 
edge  of  a  pale  sand-crest,  fringed  with  wild  camomile  and  blaz- 
ing poppies.  Aq>d  the  female,  a  small  draggled  young  woman 
in  a  large  hat,  trimmed  with  fatigued  and  dusty  peonies,  called 
out  excitedly: 

"Oh,  William,  it's  'er— it's  'er!" 

"  By  Cripps,  so  it  is !  "  came  from  the  male  companion  of  the 
battered  peonies.  He  advanced  with  a  swagger  that  was  the 
unconvincing  mask  of  diffidence.  An  undersized,  lean  young 
man,  in  the  chauffeur's  doubtful-weather  panoply  of  black 
waterproof  jacket,  breeches  merging  into  knee-boots,  the  whole 
crowned  with  a  portentous  peaked  cap,  with  absurd  brass  venti- 
lators and  powdered  with  many  thicknesses  and  shades  of  dust. 
His  hair  was  dusty.  The  very  eyelashes  of  the  honest,  ugly  grey 
eyes,  set  wide  apart  in  the  thin  wedge-shaped,  tanned  face  that 
the  absurd  cap  shaded,  were  dusty  as  a  miller's;  dust  lay  thick 
in  all  the  chinks  and  creases  of  his  leading  features,  and  a  large 
black  smudge  of  oily  grime  was  upon  his  wide  upper  lip,  im- 
pinging upon  his  riose.  Nor  was  his  companion  much  less  dusty, 
though  the  checks  of  a  travelling  ulster  of  green  and  yellow 
plaid,  adorned  with  huge  steel  buttons,  would  have  advertised 
the  Kentish  Town  Ladies'  Drapery  Establishment  whence  they 
emanated  through  the  medium  of  a  Fleet  Street  fog. 

"  Might  we  speak  to  you,  ma'am  ?  "  The  dusty  young  man 
respectfully  touched  the  dusty  peak  of  the  cap  with  brass  venti- 
lators, and,  with  a  shock  of  surprise,  Lynette  recognized  Sax- 
(ham's  chauffeur. 

"  Keyse!  ...    It  is  Keyse!  "    She  looked  at  him  in  surprise. 

"  Keyse,  ma'am."  He  touched  the  cap  again,  and  made  a 
not  ungraceful  gesture,  indicating  the  wearer  of  the  weather- 
beaten  peonies  and  the  green  and  yellow  ulster,  who  clung  to 
his  thin  elbow  with  a  red,  hard-working  hand.  "  Me  an'  my 
wife,  that  is.  Bein'  on  a  sort  of  outin',  a  kind  of  beanfeast  for 
two,  we  took  the  notion,  being  stryngers  to  South  Wyles,  of 
droppin'  in  'ere  an'  tippin'  the  '  'Ow  Do. ' '  He  breathed 
hard,  and  rivulets  of  perspiration  began  to  trickle  down  from 
under  the  preposterous  cap,  converting  the  dust  that  filled  the 
haggard  lines  of  his  thin  face  into  mud.  "  An'  payin'  our  re- 
spects." His  eyes  slewed  appealingly  at  his  companion,  asking 
as  plainly  as  an  eye  can,  "What  price  that?"  And  the  glance 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  593 

that  shot  back  from  the  dusty  shadow  of  the  exhausted  peonies 
answered,  "  Not  bad  by  'arf — for  you!  " 

Lynette  smiled  at  the  little  Cockney  couple.  The  surprise 
that  had  checked  the  beating  of  her  heart,  had  passed.  It  was 
pleasant  to  see  these  faces  from  Harley  Street.  She  answered 
with  a  dazzling  smile:  t 

"  I  understand.  My  husband  has  given  you  a  holiday.  Is 
he  well  ?  "  She  flushed,  realizing  that  it.  was  pain  to  have  to 
ask  others  for  the  news  of  him  that  he  had  denied  her.  "  I 
mean  because  he  has  not  written.  ...  I  have  been  feeling 
rather  anxious.  Was  he  quite  well  when  you  left?" 

"  Was  he?  ...  Yes,  'm!  "  W.  Keyse  shot  out  the  affirma- 
tive with  such  explosive  suddenness  that  the  hand  upon  his  arm 
must  have  nipped  hard. 

"  I  am  so  glad !  "  Lynette  turned  to  the  young  woman  in 
the  ulster,  whose  face  betrayed  no  guilty  knowledge  of  the 
pinch.  She  was  small,  and  pale,  and  gritty,  and  her  blue  eyes 
had  red  rims  to  them  from  the  fatigue  of  the  journey,  or  some 
other  cause.  But  they  were  honest  and  clear,  and  not  unpretty 
eyes,  looking  out  from  a  forest  of  dusty,  yellowish  fringe,  de- 
plorably out  of  curl.  Yet  a  fringe  that  had  associations  for 
Lynette,  reaching  a  long  way  from  Harley  Street,  and  back 
to  the  old  days  at  Gueldersdorp  before  the  siege. 

"  Surely  I  know  you?  I  used  to  know  you  at  Gueldersdorp." 
She  added  as  Mrs.  Keyse's  eyes  said  "Yes,":  "You  used  to  be 
a  housemaid  at  the  Convent.  How  strange  that  I  should  not 
have  remembered  it  until  now!  And  your  husband.  ...  I 
do  not  remember  ever  having  seen  him  before  he  came  to  us 
at  Harley  Street  But  his  name  comes  back  to  me  in  connection 
with  a  letter " — she  knitted  her  brows,  chasing  the  vague, 
fleeting  memory — "  a  love-letter  that  was  sent  to  Miss  Du 
Taine  inside  a  chocolate-box,  just  when  school  was  breaking  up. 
It  was  you  who  smuggled  the  box  in." 

"  To  oblige,  bein'  begged  to  by  Keyse  as  a  fyvour.  'E  didn't 
know  'is  own  mind — them  d'ys,"  explained  Mrs.  Keyse,  sweep- 
ing her  husband's  scorching  countenance  with  a  glance  of  with- 
ering scorn. 

"  Nor  did  you,"  retorted  W.  Keyse,  stung  to  defiance. 
"  Walkin'  out  with  a  Dopper  you  was — if  it  comes  to  that." 
He  spun  round,  mid-ankle  deep  in  sand,  to  finish.  "  An'  you'd 
'ave  bin  joined  by  a  Dutch  dodger  and  settled  down  on  a  Vaal 
sheep-farm,  if  the  order  'adn't  come  'ummin'  along  the  wire 
from  'Eadquarters  that  said,  'Jane  'Arris,  you're  to  have  this 


594  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

bloke,  and  no  other.     Till  Death  do  you  part.     Everlasting — 
Amen !  '  " 

There  was  so  strong  a  flavour  of  Church  about  the  final  sen- 
tence that  Mrs.  Keyse  could  not  keep  admiration  out  of  her 
eyes. 

Her  own  eyes  dancing  with  mirthful  amusement,  Lynette 
looked  from  one  to  the  other  of  the  little  Cockney  couple,  and, 
tactfully  changing  the  trend  of  the  conversation,  hoped  that 
they  were  enjoying  their  trip — a  query  which  so  obviously  failed 
to  evoke  an  expression  of  pleased  assent  in  either  of  the  small, 
thin,  wearied  faces  that  she  hastened  to  add: 

"  But  perhaps  this  is  the  very  beginning  of  your  holiday. 
When  did  you  leave  London  ?  " 

"  Yes'dy  mornin'  at  'arf-past  six,"  said  W.  Keyse,  carefully 
avoiding  her  eyes.  A  spasm  contracted  the  tired  face  under  the 
dusty  peonies.  Their  wearer  put  her  hand  to  the  collar  of  the 
green  and  yellow  ulster,  and  undid  a  button  there. 

'  Yesterday  morning  at  half-past  six ' !  "     Lynette  repeated 
in  wonder. 

"An'  if  the  machine  I  'ad  on  'ire  from  a  pal  o'  mine — chap 
what  keeps  a  second-hand  shop  for  'em  in  Portland  Road — 
'adn't  'ad  everythink  'appen  to  'er  wot  can  'appen  to  a  three- 
an'-a-'arf  'orse-power  Baby  Junot  wot  'ad  seen  'er  best  d'ys 
before  automobilin'  'ad  cut  its  front  teeth,"  said  W.  Keyse,  with 
bitterness,  "  we  would  'ave  bin  'ere  before.  As  it  is,  we've  left 
the  car  at  a  little  '  Temperance  Tavern  '  in  Shrewsbury,  kep' 
by  a  Methodist  widder,  'oo  thinks  such  new-fangled  inventions 
sinful — an'  only  consented  to  take  charge  on  account  of  the 
Prophet  Elijer  a-goin'  up  to  'Eaven  in  a  Fiery  Chariot — an' 
come  on  'ere  by  tryne." 

Lynette  looked  at  the  man  in  silence.  She  even  repeated 
after  him,  rather  dully: 

"  You  came  on  here — by  train  ?  " 

"  Slow  Parliamentary — stoppin'  at  every  'arf-dozen  stytions," 
explained  W.  Keyse,  "  for  collectors  in  velveteens  and  Scotch 
caps  to  ask  tickets,  plyse?  And  but  that  the  porter  on  the 
'Erion  Down  platform  'ad  see  you  walkin'  on  the  Links,  and 
my  wife  knoo  your  dress  and  the  colour  of  your  'air  'arf  a  mite 
'orf,  we'd  'ave  lost  precious  time  in  rinding  you,  and  giving 
you — the  message  what  we've  come  'ere  to  bring." 

"  From  my  husband  ?     From  Dr.  Saxham  ?  " 

W.  Keyse  shifted  from  one  foot  to  the  other,  and  coughed 
an  embarrassed  cough. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  595 

"Not  exac'Iy  from  Dr.  Saxham." 

Lynette  looked  at  W.  Keyse,  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  the 
little  sallow  Cockney  face  had  Fate  in  it.  A  sudden  terror 
whitened  her  to  the  lips.  She  cried  out  in  a  voice  that  had  lost 
all  its  sweetness: 

"  You  have  deceived  me  in  saying  he  was  well.  Something 
has  happened  to  him!  He  is  very  ill,  or ?  " 

She  could  not  utter  the  word.  Instinctively  her  eyes  went 
past  the  stammering  man  to  the  woman  who  hung  behind  his 
elbow.  And  the  wearer  of  the  nodding  peonies  cried  out: 

"  No,  no!  The  Doctor  isn't  dead— or  ill,  to  call  ill!  "  She 
turned  angrily  upon  her  husband.  "  See  wot  a  turn  you've 
give  'er,"  she  snapped.  "  Why  couldn't  you  up  and  speak 
out?" 

W.  Keyse  was  plainly  nonplussed.  He  took  off  the  giant  cap 
with  the  brass  ventilators,  and  turned  it  round  and  round,  look- 
ing carefully  inside.  But  he  found  no  eloquence  therein. 

"Why  did  I  bring  a  skirt,  I  arsk,  if  I'm  to  do  the  pater?" 
He  addressed  himself  in  an  audible  aside  to  Mrs.  Keyse. 
"  You  might  as  well  'ave  stopped  at  'ome  with  the  nipper,"  he 
added,  complainingly,  "  if  I  ain't  to  'ave  no  better  'elp  than 
this!" 

"You  mean  kindly,  I  know."  Lynette  tried  to  smile  in  say- 
ing it.  "  There  is  trouble  that  you  are  here  to  break  to  me ;  I 
understand  very  well.  Please  tell  me  without  delay,  plainly 
what  has  happened?  I  am  very — strong.  I  shall  not  faint — 
if  that  is  what  you  are  afraid  of." 

She  caught  her  breath,  for  the  woman  broke  out  into  dry 
sobbing  and  cried  out  wildly: 

"  Oh,  come  back  to  'im.  Come  back,  if  you're  a  woman. 
Gawd,  Who  sees  'im  knows  as  'ow  'e  can't  bear  no  more.  O! 
if  my  'art's  so  wrung  by  what  I've  seen  him  suffer,  think  what 
he's  bore  these  crooil  weeks  an'  months !  " 

The  peonies  rocked  in  the  gale  of  Emigration  Jane's  emotion. 
Her  hard-worked  hands  went  out,  entreating  for  him;  her 
dowdy  little  figure  seemed  to  grow  tall,  so  impressive  was  the 
earnestness  of  her  appeal. 

"  Him  and  you  are  toffs,  and  me  and  Keyse  are  common 
folks.  .  .  .  Flesh  and  blood's  the  syme,  though,  only  covered 
wiv  different  skins.  An'  Human  Nature's  Human  Nature, 
'owever  you  fake  'er  up  an'  christen  'er.  An'  Love  must  'ave 
give  an'  take  of  Love,  or  else  Love's  got  to  die.  Burn  a  lamp 
wivout  oil,  and  see  wot  'appens.  It  goes  out! — You're  left  in 


596  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

the  dark !  " — Her  homely  gesture,  illustrating  the  homely  anal- 
og)', seemed  to  bring  down  blackness.  Lynette  hung  speech- 
less upon  her  fateful  lips. 

" — Then,  like  as  not,  you'll  overturn  the  table  gropin'. 
'  Smashed ! '  you'll  say,  '  an'  nobody  but  silly  me  to  blyme !  It 
would  'ave  lighted  up  a  'appy  'ome  if  I  'adn't  been  a  barmy 
idiot.  It  would  'ave  showed  me  the  face  of  my  'usband  leanin' 
to  kiss  me  in  our  blessed  marriage-bed,  an'  my  baby  smilin'  in 
its  cradle-sleep  'ard  by.  ...  O ! — O !  " — She  choked  and 
clutched  her  bosom,  and  her  voice  rose  in  a  throaty  screech  of 
incipient  hysteria — "  An'  I've  left  my  own  sweet,  unweaned 
boy  to  come  and  say  these  words  to  you.  .  .  .  An'  the  darlin* 
darlin'  fightin'  with  the  bottle  they're  tryin'  to  give  'im,  and 
roarin'  for  'is  mam.  .  .  .  And  my  breasts  as  'ard  as  stones,  an* 
throbbin'.  .  .  .  Gawd  'elp  me  1 "  She  panted  and  fought  and 
choked,  striving  for  speech. 

"  Keep  your  hair  on,"  advised  W.  Keyse  in  a  hoarse  whisper. 
She  turned  on  him  like  a  tigress,  her  eyes  flaming  under  her 
straightened  fringe. 

"Keep  yours!  I've  come  to  speak,  and  speak  I  mean  to — 
for  the  sake  of  the  best  man  Gawd's  made  for  a  'undred  years. 
Bar  one,  you  says,  but  bar  none,  says  I,  an'  charnce  it!  Since 
the  day  'e  stood  up  for  you  in  that  Dutch  saloon-bar  at  Guel- 
dersdorp,  what  is  there  we  don't  owe  to  'im — you  and  me,  and 
all  the  blooming  crew  of  us?  And  because  'e'll  tyke  no  thanks, 
'e  gits  ingratitude — the  dirtiest  egg  the  Devil  ever  hatched." 

"Cripps!"  gasped  W.  Keyse,  awe-stricken  by  this  lofty 
flight  of  rhetoric.  Ignoring  him,  she  pursued  her  way. 

"  You're  a  beautiful  young  lydy  " — her  tone  softened  from 
its  strenuous  pitch — "  wot  'ave  'ad  a  disappointment,  like  many 
of  us  'ave  at  the  start.  You'd  set  your  'art  on  Another  One, 
:E  got  killed,  an'  you  married  the  Doctor — but  it's  never  bin 
no  real  marriage.  You've  ate  'is  bread,  as  the  sayin'  is,  an'  give 
'im  a  stone.  An'  e's  beat  'is  pore  'art  to  bloody  rags  agynst  it 
— d'y  after  d'y,  an'  night  after  night !  I  seen  it,  I  tell  you !  " 
she  shrilled — "I  seen  it  wiv  me  own  eyes!  You  pretty,  silly 
kid!  Don't  you  know  wot  'arm  you're  doing?  You  crooil 
byby!  Do  you  reckon  Gawd  gave  you  the  man  to  torture  an* 
break  an'  spoil  ?  " 

A  hand  imperatively  clapped  over  the  mouth  of  Mrs.  Keyse, 
stemmed  the  torrent  of  her  eloquence. 

"Dry  up!    You've  said  enough,"  ordered  her  spouse. 

"Do  not  stop  her!"  Lynette  said,    without    removing    her 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  597 

fascinated  eyes  from  the  Pythoness.     "  Let  her  tell  me  every- 
thing that  she  has  seen  and  knows." 

"  I  seen  the  Doctor — many,  many  times,"  the  woman  went 
on,  as  W.  Keyse  reluctantly  ungagged  her,  "  watchin'  Keyse 
and  me  in  our  poor  'ome-life  together — with  the  eyes  of  a 
starvin'  dog  lookin'  at  a  bone.  You  ought  to  know  'ow  starvin' 
'urts.  .  .  ."  The  strenuous  voice  soared  and  quivered.  "  You 
learned  that  at  Gueldersdorp.  Yet  you  can  see  your  'usband 
dyin'  of  'unger,  an'  never  put  out  your  'and.  Dyin*  fir  want 
of  a  kiss  an'  a  bit  o'  cuddle — that's  the  kind  o'  dyin'  I  mean — 
dyin'  for  what  Gawd  gives  to  the  very  brutes  He  myde.  Seems 
to  you  I  talk  low!  .  .  .  Well,  there's  nothink  lower  than 
Nature,  An  She  Goes  As  'Igh  As  'Eaven!"  said  Emigration 
Jane. 

The  wide,  sweeping  gesture  \vith  which  the  shabby  little 
woman  took  in  land  and  sea  and  sky  was  quite  noble  and  in- 
spiring to  witness.  And  now  the  tears  were  running  down  her 
face,  and  her  voice  lost  its  raucous  shrillness,  and  became  plain- 
tive, and  even  soft. 

"  I'm  to  tell  you  everythink  I've  seen,  an'  know  about  the 
Doctor.  .  .  .  I've  seen  'im  age,  age,  a  bit  more  every  d'y.  I've 
seen  'im  waste,  waste,  with  loneliness  and  trouble — never  turn- 
in'  bitter  on  accounts  of  it — never  grudgin'  'elp  'e  could  give 
to  man  or  woman  or  kid.  Late  on  the  night  you  left  'ome  I 
see  'im  come  up  to  your  bedroom.  E'  switched  on  the  light. 
'E  forgot  the  blinds  was  up.  'E  looked  round,  all  'aggard  an' 
lost  and  wildlike,  before  'e  dropped  down  cryin'  beside  the 
bed.  .  .  ." 

She  sobbed,  and  dropped  on  her  own  knees  in  the  sand  among 
the  prickly  yellow  dwarf  roses,  weeping  quite  wildly  and  wring- 
ing her  hands. 

"  The  mornin'  found  'im  there.  Six  weeks  ago  that  was ;  an' 
every  night  since  then  it's  bin  the  syme  gyme.  Never  the  blinds 
left  up  since  that  first  time,  but  always  light,  and  his  shadow 
moves  about.  An'  in  my  bed  I  wake  a-cryin'  so,  an'  don't,  know 
which  of  'em  I'm  cryin'  for — the  lonely  shadow  or  the  lonely 
man •" 

She  could  not  go  on,  and  the  man  took  up  the  tale. 

"  She's  told  you  true.  Maybe  we'd  never  'ave  come  but  for 
the  feelin'  that  things  was  workin'  up  to  wot  the  pypers  call  a 
Domestic  Tragedy.  Or  at  the  best  the  break-up  of  a  'Ome. 
That's  wot  my  wife  she  kep'  stuffin'  into  me,"  said  W.  Keyse. 
"  An' — strewth !  when  the  Doctor  sent  for  me  an'  pyde  me  orf 


598  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

.  .  .  full  wages  right  on  up  to  the  end  of  the  year,  anf  t%e 
syme  to  Morris  an'  the  'ouse'old  staff,  tellin'  us  e's  goin'  on  a 
voyage,  I  s'ys  to  'er,  '  It's  come ! ' : 

"  On  a  voyage!    Where?  " 

"Oh,  carn't  you  guess?"  cried  the  woman  on  the  ground, 
desperately  looking  up  with  tragic  eyes  out  of  a  swollen,  tear- 
stained  face. 

A  mist  came  before  Lynette's  vision,  and  a  sudden  tremor 
shook  her  like  a  reed.  She  swayed  as  though  the  ground  had 
heaved  beneath  her,  but  she  would  not  fall.  She  choked  back 
the  cry  that  had  risen  in  her  throat.  This  was  the  time  t»  act, 
not  the  time  to  weep  for  him.  She  knelt  an  instant  by  the 
woman  on  the  ground,  put  her  arms  round  her,  kissed  her  wet 
cheek,  and  then  rose  up,  pale  and  calm  and  collected,  saying  to 
Keyse : 

"  Take  her  to  the  Plas.  Ask  for  Mrs.  Pugh,  the  house- 
keeper. She  is  to  prepare  a  room  for  you;  you  are  to  break- 
fast, and  rest  all  day,  and  return  to  London  by  the  night  mail. 
G«od-bye!  God  bless  you  both!  I  was  going  to  him  to-night 
at  latest.  ...  I  am  going  to  him  now.  .  .  .  Pray  that  he 
is  alive  when  I  reach  him.  But  he  will  be.  God  is  good !  " 

Her  face  was  transfigured  by  the  new  light  that  shone  in 
it.  She  was  strong,  salient,  resourceful — no  longer  the  willowy 
girl.  She  was  moving  from  them  with  her  long  swift  step, 
when  W.  Keyse  recovered  himself. 

"  'Old  'ard!  Beg  pardon,  ma'am;  but  'ave  you  the  spon- 
dulics?"  He  blushed  at  her  puzzled  look  and  amended: 

"  Money  enough  upon  you  to  pay  the  railway-fare?" 

She  lifted  a  little  gold-netted  purse  attached  to  her  neck- 
chain. 

"  Five  pounds.  My  maid  is  to  follow.  You  know  Marie. 
You  will  let  her  travel  with  you  ?  " 

"  Righto!  But  you'll  want  a  wrap,  coat  or  shawl,  or  some- 
think.  Midnight  before  you  gits  in — if  you  catch  this  next  up- 
Express.  .  .  .  Watto!  Give  us  'old  o'  this  'ere,  Missus!  You 
can  'ave  mine  instead.  .  .  ." 

"Please,  no!  I  need  nothing  .  .  .  nothing!"  She  stayed 
his  savage  attack  on  the  buttons  of  Mrs.  Keyse's  green-and- 
yellow  ulster  by  holding  out  her  watch.  "  How  much  time 
have  I  left  to  catch  the  up-Express?  " 

"  Eight  minutes.    By  Cripps!  you'll  'ave  to  run  for  it." 

She  waved  her  white  hand  and  was  gone,  swiftly  as  a  bird 
or  a  deer. 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  599 

"  They've  signalled !  "  he  announced  after  a  breathless  inter- 
val, during  which  the  slender  flying  figure  grew  smaller  upon 
the  distant  sight.  It  vanished,  and  a  thin,  nearing  screech  an- 
nounced the  up-Express.  His  wife  jumped  up  and  clutched 
him. 

"  William !    Suppose  she's  lost  it !  " 

"  Garn!    No  fear!  "  scoffed  W.  Keyse. 

As  he  scoffed  he  was  full  of  fear.  They  heard  the  clanking 
stoppage,  the  shrill  whistle  of  departure.  They  looked  breath- 
lessly towards  the  green  wood  that  fringed  the  cliff-base  under 
the  Castle  head.  The  iron  way  ran  through  the  belt  of  trees. 
The  Express  rushed  through,  broke  roaring  upon  their  unim- 
peded vision,  devoured  the  gleaming  line  of  metals  that  lay 
between  wood  and  tunnel,  and  left  them  with  the  taste  of  cin- 
dery  steam  in  their  open  mouths,  and  the  memory  of  a  white 
handkerchief  waved  at  a  carriage  window  by  a  slender  hand. 

"  It's  a'right,  ole  girl,"  said  W.  Keyse,  beaming.  "  Come  on 
up  to  the  'ouse.  I  could  do  wiv  a  bit  o'  peck,  an'  I  lay  so  could 
you.  Lumme!  "  His  triumphant  face  fell  by  the  fraction  of  an 
inch.  "  What'll  she  do  when  she  lands  in  'ome,  wivout  a 
woman  to  git.  a  cup  o'  tea  for  'er?  or  curl  'er  'air,  or  undo  'er 
st'yl'yces  an'  things?" 

"  She'll  do  wot  other  young  wimmen  does  under  sim'lar 
circumstances,"  said  Mrs.  Keyse  enigmatically.  She  added: 
"  If  she  'as  luck,  she'll  'ave  a  man  for  'er  maid,  an'  if  she  'as 
sense,  she'll  reckon  the  swop  a  good  one." 


LXXII 

UNTIL  the  actual  moment  of  their  parting  at  Euston,  Saxham 
had  never  fully  realized  the  anguish  of  the  last  moment  when 
Lynette's  face  should  pass  for  ever  out  of  his  thirsting  sight. 

It  was  going.  .  .  .  He  quickened  his  long  strides  to  keep  up 
with  it.  He  must  have  called  to  her,  for  she  came  hurriedly 
to  the  corridor-window,  her  sweet  cheeks  suffused  with  lovely 
glowing  colour,  her  sweet  eyes  shining,  her  small  gloved  hand 
held  frankly  out.  He  gripped  it,  uttered  some  incoherency — 
what,  he  could  not  remember — was  shouted  at  by  a  porter  with 
a  greasy  lamp-truck,  cannoned  heavily  against  a  man  with  a 
basket  of  papers,  awakened  with  a  great  pang  to  the  knowledge 
that  she  was  gone.  And  the  great,  bare,  dirty,  populous  glass- 


6oo  ONE   BRAVER  THING 

hive  of  Euston,  that  has  been  the  forcing-house  of  so  many  sor- 
rowful partings,  held  another  breaking  heart. 

In  the  days  that  followed  he  saw  his  private  patients  as 
usual,  and  operated  upon  a  regular  mid-week  morning  at  St. 
Stephen's,  whose  senior  surgeon  had  recently  resigned.  The 
rest  of  the  time  he  spent  in  making  his  arrangements. 

Sanely,  logically,  methodically,  everything  had  been  thought 
out.  Major  Wrynche  was  to  be  her  guardian,  co-trustee  with 
Lord  Castleclare,  and  executor  of  the  Will.  It  left  her,  simply 
and  unconditionally,  everything  of  which  Saxham  was  possessed. 
She  would  live  with  the  Wrynches  until  she  married  again. 
His  agents  were  instructed  to  find  a  tenant  for  the  house,  and 
privately  a  purchaser  for  the  practice.  They  wrote  to  him  of  a 
client  already  found.  Matters  were  progressing  steadily.  Very 
soon  now  the  desired  end. 

His  table-lamp  burned  through  the  nights  as  he  made  up  his 
ledgers  and  settled  his  accounts.  In  leisure  moments  he  read 
in  the  intolerable  book  of  the  Past  of  all  its  sorrows  and  fail- 
ures, its  frantic  follies  and  its  besotted  sins.  Memory  omitted 
nothing.  Not  a  blot  upon  those  sordid  pages  was  spared  him. 
It  was  not  possible  for  an  instant  to  turn  away  his  eyes.  His 
mental  clarity  was  unrelieved  by  weariness.  No  shadow 
dimmed  the  keen  crystal  of  his  brain.  He  was  at  tension,  like 
a  bowstring  that  is  stretched  continually.  He  realized  this, 
thinking:  "Presently  I  will  cut  the  bow-string,  and  the  bow 
shall  have  the  rest.  Even  if  my  boasted  will-power  reasserted 
itself — even  if  I  rose  triumphant,  for  the  second  time,  cured  of 
my  vile  craving,  I  do  not  the  less  owe  my  debt  to  the  woman 
I  have  married.  I  promised  her  that  I  would  die  rather  than 
fail  her.  I  failed  her.  There  is  no  excuse !  " 


LXXIII 

THE  West  End  pavements  were  shining  wet.  Belated  cabs 
spun  homewards  with  sleepy  revellers.  Neat  motor-broughams 
slid  between  the  kerbs  and  rounded  corners  at  unrebuked  ex- 
cess-speeds, winking  their  blazing  head-lights  at  drowsy  police- 
men muffled  in  oilskin  capes.  On  all  these  accustomed  things 
the  blue-white  arc-lights  shone. 

The  most  belated  of  all  the  hansom  cabs  in  London  stopped 
at  the  door  of  the  house  in  Harley  Street  as  the  narrow  strip 
of  sky  between  the  grim,  drab-faced  houses  began  t.o  be  dappled 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  601 

with  the  leaden-grey  of  dawn.  A  faint  moon  reeled  westwards, 
hunted  by  sable  shapes  of  screaming  terror,  pale  Venus  cling- 
ing to  her  tattered  robe.  The  house  was  all  black  and  silent, 
a  dead  face  with  blinded  windows.  Did  Saxham  wake  behind 
them?  Or  did  he  sleep,  not  to  wake  again? 

Lynette  tried  her  latchkey.  The  unchained  door  swung 
backwards.  She  passed  into  the  house  silently,  a  tall,  slender 
shape.  A  light  was  shining  under  the  consulting-room  door. 
Her  heart  leaped  to  greet  it.  She  kissed  her  hand  to  it,  and 
turned,  moving  noiselessly,  and  put  up  the  chain  of  the  hall- 
door.  She  felt  for  the  switch  of  the  electric  light,  and  turned 
it  on. 

She  was  jarred  and  aching  and  weary  with  her  journey ;  but 
it  was  a  very  fair  woman  whom  she  saw  reflected  in  the  hall 
mirror  as  she  unpinned  her  hat  and  tossed  it  upon  the  hall- 
table,  and  passed  on  to  the  consulting-room  door — a  woman 
whose  face  was  strange  to  herself,  with  that  new  fire  and  de- 
cision, and  strength  of  purpose  in  it;  a  woman  with  glowing 
roses  of  colour  in  her  cheeks,  and  eager,  shining  eyes. 

All  through  the  long  hours  of  the  journey  she  had  pictured 
him,  her  husband,  bending  over  his  work,  sleeping  in  his  chair, 
or  in  his  bed.  Yet  behind  these  pictures  was  another  image 
that  started  through  their  lines  and  colours  dreadfully,  per- 
sistently, and  the  image  was  that  of  a  dead  man.  She  thrust 
it  from  her  for  the  hundredth  time,  as  the  door-handle  yielded 
to  her  touch.  She  went  into  the  room.  Saxham  was  not  there. 

The  lamp  shed  its  circle  of  light  upon  the  consulting-room 
table.  The  armchair  stood  aside,  as  though  hastily  pushed 
back.  .  .  .  Signs  of  his  recent  presence  were  visible.  The 
fireplace  was  heaped  high  with  the  ashes  of  burned  papers; 
the  acrid  smell  of  their  burning  hung  still  on  the  close  air. 

She  glanced  back  at  the  table.  All  its  drawers  stood  open.x 
Ledgers  and  case-books  stood  on  it,  neatly  arrayed.  A  thick 
packet,  heavily  sealed,  was  addressed  in  Saxham's  small,  firm 
handwriting  to  Major  Bingham  Wrynche,  Plas  Bendigaid, 
Herion,  South  Wales.  There  were  other  letters  in  an  orderly 
pile. 

She  glanced  at  the  uppermost.  It  bore  her  own  name. 
She  took  it  and  kissed  it,  and  put  it  in  her  breast.  There  was 
an  enclosure,  heavy,  and  of  oval  shape.  She  wondered  what 
it  might  be.  As  she  did  so,  she  looked  at  the  letter  hers  had 
covered,  and  read  what  was  written  on  the  cover  in  the  small, 
firm  hand : 


602  ONE   BRAVER   THING 

"'To  the  Coroner.'  .  .  .     Merciful  God!  .  .  ." 

The  cry  broke  from  her  without  her  knowledge.  The  room 
rang  with  it  as  she  turned  and  ran.  With  the  nightmare- 
feeling  of  running  up  dream-stairs,  of  feeling  nothing  tangible 
under  her  footsteps,  with  the  dreadful  certainty  that  of  all  those 
crowding  pictures  of  him  seen  through  the  long  hours  in  the 
racing  Express,  only  the  one  that  she  had  not  dared  to  look 
at  was  the  real,  true  picture  of  Saxham  now. 

Higher,  higher,  in  a  series  of  swift  rushes,  she  mounted 
like  the  dream-woman  in  her  dream.  From  solid  cubes  of  dark- 
ness to  grey  landing-glimmers.  To  the  third-story  bedroom 
that  had  never  been  done  up.  In  the  company  of  Little  Miss 
Muffet,  the  Four-and-Twenty  Blackbirds,  and  Georgy  Porgy, 
would  he  be  lying,  cold  and  ghastly,  with  a  wound  across  his 
throat? 

But  the  room  was  unoccupied;  the  bed  had  not  been  slept 
in.  Pale  dawn  peeping  in  at  the  corners  of  the  scanty  blinds 
assured  her  of  that.  Where  might  she  find  him?  Where 
seek  him? 

Fool!  said  a  voice  within  her;  there  is  but  one  answer  to 
such  a  question.  Where  has  he  gone  night  after  night? 
Coward,  you  knew,  and  yet  avoided.  .  .  .  What  threshold 
has  he  crossed  when  the  world  was  sleeping  round  him?  By 
whose  vacant  pillow  has  his  broken  heart  sought  vain  relief  in 
tears  ? 

She  passed  downstairs,  gliding  noiselessly  over  the  thick 
carpets,  and  went  into  the  room  it  had  been  his  pleasure  to  fur- 
nish and  decorate  as  his  wife's  boudoir.  Its  seashell  pinkness 
was  merged  in  darkness,  faintly  striped  by  the  grey  dawn- 
glimmer,  but  the  door  of  the  bedroom  that  opened  from  it 
was  ajar.  Light  edged  the  heavy  fold  of  the  portiere  curtain 
and  made  a  pool  upon  the  carpet.  She  held  her  breath  as  she 
stole  to  the  door,  and,  trembling,  looked  in.  He  was  there, 
kneeling  by  the  bed.  His  heavily-shouldered  black  figure  made 
a  blotch  upon  the  dainty  white  and  azure  draperies;  his  arms 
were  outflung  upon  the  silken  counterpane. 

A  rush  of  thanks  sprang  from  her  full  heart  to  Heaven  as 
she  heard  the  heavy  sighing  breaths  that  proved  him  living  yet. 

She  would  have  gone  to  him  and  touched  him  then,  but  the 
sound  of  his  voice  took  courage  from  her,  and  drew  her 
strength  away.  He  spoke,  lifting  his  face  to  the  ivory  Cruci- 
fix that  hung  upon  the  wall  above  the  bed-head.  It  was  a  voice 
of  groanings  rather  than  the  quiet  voice  with  which  she  was 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  603 

familiar.  She  realized  that  a  soul  in  mortal  anguish  was  speak- 
ing aloud  to  God. 

"  I  cannot  live !  "  groaned  Saxham.  "  I  am  weary,  body 
and  spirit.  What  I  have  borne  I  have  borne  in  the  hope  of  lay- 
ing my  burden  down.  All  is  ready;  I  have  cleared  the  way; 
my  loins  are  girded  for  departure.  All  I  asked  was  to  lie  down 
in  the  earth  and  wake  again  no  more.  All  I  asked — and  what 
happens?  My  dead  faith  quickens  again  in  me.  I  must  bow 
my  neck  once  more  to  the  yoke  of  the  Inconceivable — I  must 
perforce  believe  in  TTiee  again.  I  hear  the  voice  of  the  pale 
thorn-crowned  Victim,  saying,  '  I  am  Thy  God  who  lived  and 
suffered  and  died  for  thee.  Live  on,  then,  and  suffer  also,  and 
pass  to  the  Life  Eternal  when  thine  hour  comes.'  O  God! — 
my  God!  have  I  not  earned  deliverance?  Have  I  not  borne 
anguish  enough  ?  " 

His  fierce,  upbraiding  voice  died  out  in  inarticulate  mutter- 
ings.  His  head  fell  forwards  upon  his  arms.  Presently  he 
lifted  it,  and  cried  out,  as  if  replying  to  some  unseen  speaker: 

"  If  a  self-sought  death  entails  eternal  torment,  am  I  not  in 
hell  here  upon  earth?  How  else,  when  to  live  is  to  hold  her 
in  bondage,  knowing  that  she  longs  and  pines  to  be  free?  And 
yet,  to  go  out  into  the  dark  and  leave  her!  never  again  to  see 
her!  never  more  to  feel  the  light  of  her  eyes  flow  into  me! 
Never  to  hear  her  voice — to  be  of  my  own  deed  separate  from 
her  throughout  Eternity — that  were  of  all  the  judgments  that 
are  Thine  to  scourge  with  the  most  terrible  that  Thou  canst 
lay  upon  my  soul !  " 

A  sob  tore  him.     He  moaned  out  brokenly: 

"  Give  me  a  sign,  if  Thou  art  indeed  merciful !  Show  me 
that  there  is  relenting  in  Thee!  Grant  me  the  hope,  at  least, 
that  my  great  renunciation  may  open  a  gate  by  which  after 
cycles  of  expiatory  suffering,  I  may  at  last  pass  through  to 
where  she  dwells  in  Thy  Brightness.  Give  me  to  see  her 
face  with  a  smile  on  it — to  touch  her  hand — after  all — after 
all!  The  lips  I  have  never  kissed,  may  they  not  be  mine,  O 
God — mine  one  day  in  Heaven?  If  Thou  art  Love,  there 
should  be  love  there  .  .  ." 

She  glided  over  the  deep  carpet,  stretched  out  a  timid  hand, 
and  touched  his  shoulder.  He  lifted  his  great  square  head, 
and  slowly  looked  round.  The  black  hair,  mingled  with  white, 
clung  damp  to  the  broad  forehead.  His  eyes  were  bloodshot, 
strained,  and  haggard,  and  wild.  Sorrow  was  charted  deep 
upon  the  haggard  features.  Amazement  struck  them  into  folly 


604  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

as  he  started  up,  stammering  out  her  name,  and  clutching  for 
support  at  the  brass  rail  that  was  at  the  foot  of  the  bed. 

"Lynette!  You.  ...  It  is  you?  .  .  ."  He  shook, 
staring  at  her  with  dilated  eyes. 

"  Owen,  you  are  ill.  You  speak  and  look  so  strangely.  It 
is  me — really  me ! "  she  said,  trying  to  speak  calmly  through 
the  tumult  of  her  heart. 

"  I  am  not.  ill.     How  is  it  that  you  are  here  ?  " 

He  lifted  a  hand  to  his  strained  and  smarting  eyes  and  moved 
it  to  and  fro  before  them.  He  was  staring  at  her  still,  but 
with  pupils  that  were  less  dilated,  and  the  veins  upon  his  broad 
forehead  were  no  longer  purple  now. 

"  Have  I  talked  nonsense  ?  I  had  dozed,  and  you  startled 
me  coming  upon  me.  .  .  .  Why  have  you  ?  .  .  ."  He  strove 
to  speak  and  look  as  usual.  "  Has  anything  happened  that 
you  have  come  back  ?  " 

She  pressed  her  hands  together,  wrestling  for  collected 
thought  and  clear,  explicit  utterance,  though  the  room  rocked 
about  her,  and  the  floor  seemed  to  rise  and  fall  beneath  her 
feet. 

"  Something  happened.  I  have  come  back  from  Wales  to 
tell  you  that  I  ...  I  cannot  live  upon  your  friendship  any 
longer.  I — I  must  have  more,  or  I  shall  die !  " 

He  knew  all.  She  had  met  the  man  whose  look  and  breath 
and  touch  had  revealed  to  her  her  own  misery.  Chained  to 
her  harsh  yoke-fellow;  denied  Love's  bread  and  wine  of  life. 
.  .  .  He  looked  at  her,  and  answered  coldly: 

"You  shall  not  die.  You  shall  be  free.  If  you  had  waited 
until  to-morrow " 

"  It  is  already  day,"  she  told  him,  and,  as  though  to  con- 
firm her,  a  neighbouring  steeple-clock  clanged  twice.  He 
moved  uneasily  as  his  eyes  fell  on  the  disordered  coverlet,  half 
dragged  from  the  bed  and  trailing  on  the  floor.  They  shunned 
hers  as  he  said,  a  dark  flush  rising  through  his  haggard  pallor: 

"  I  beg  your  pardon  for  the  intrusion  here.  But  you  were 
away.  ...  I  could  not  sleep,  and  the  house  was  lonely. 
.  .  .  Is  your  maid  with  you?  Surely  you  are  not  alone?" 

She  bent  her  head  with  a  faint  smile. 

"  Quite  alone.     I  did  not  wish  for  a  companion." 

"  It  was  not  wise "  he  began,  and  took  a  step  door-Wards. 

"  I  will  call  one  of  the  servants,"  he  added,  and  was  going, 
when  he  remembered,  and  stopped,  saying  hoarsely: 

"  I  forgot.     They  are  gone.     I  have  sent  them  all  away." 


ONE    BRAVER   THING  605 

She  looked  at  him  in  silence.     He  continued: 

"  I  have  paid  and  dismissed  them.  You  will  think  it  curious 
— you  will  know  the  reason  later — I  have  written  to  you  to  ex- 
plain." 

"  I  found  upon  your  table  a  letter  addressed  to  me,"  she  said. 
He  started,  knitting  his  black  brows. 

"  You  have  not  read  it  ?  "  he  asked,  breathing  quickly. 

"  Not  yet."  She  touched  her  bosom,  where  the  letter  lay. 
"  I  have  it  here." 

"Please  do  not  open  it.  Give  me  back  the  letter!"  He 
stretched  out  his  hand  to  take  it,  and  breathed  more  freely 
when  she  drew  it  out  and  gave  it  to  him.  And  a  sweet  wild 
pang  shot  through  him;  the  paper  was  so  warm  and  fragrant 
from  the  nest  where  it  had  lain  so  short  a  time.  But  he 
mastered  the  emotion  and  tore  open  the  envelope.  He  took 
from  it  the  enclosure,  wrapped  in  folds  of  tissue-paper,  and  put 
it  in  her  hand,  saying,  as  he  thrust  the  letter  in  his  coat-pocket: 
11  There  is  something  that  by  right  is  yours." 

"  Mine?  .  .  ."  She  unrolled  the  tissue-paper,  and  the 
brilliants  that  were  set  about  the  miniature  sent  spirts  of  white 
and  green  and  rosy  fire  between  the  slender,  ivory-hued  fingers 
that  turned  it  about.  She  gave  a  little  gasping  cry  of  recog- 
nition : 

"  It  is — me?     How  could  you  have  managed ?"    Then, 

as  the  sweet  grey  eyes  of  fair  dead  Lucy  smiled  up  into  her 
own:  "  I  do  not  know  how  I  am  sure  of  it,"  she  said,  with 
a  catching  in  her  breath,  "  but  this  must  be  my  mother! " 

Saxham  bent  his  head  in  answer  to  her  look.  His  eyes  bad* 
her  question  no  farther.  She  faltered: 

"  May  I  not  know  how  it  came  into  your  hands?  " 
"  Through  the  death,"  Saxham  answered,  "  of  an  evil  manv 
You  know  his  name.     He  probably  robbed  your  father  of  that 
miniature  with  other  things;  but  I  can  only  surmise  this.     I 
cannot  positively  say." 

"  You  speak  of  my  father."  Her  face  was  quivering,  her 
eyes  entreated.  "  Tell  me  what  you  know  of  him,  and  of  " — 
she  kissed  the  miniature,  and  held  it  to  her  cheek — "of  my 
mother." 

"  Your  father,"  said  Saxham,  "  was  an  officer  and  a  gentle- 
man. The  surname  that  you  exchanged  for  mine,  poor  child's 
was  his.  His  Christian  name  is  engraved  there  " — he  pointed 
to  the  inner  rim  of  the  band  of  brilliants — "  with  that  of  the 
lady  who  was  your  mother.  _She  \vas_  beautiful ;  she  was  tender 


606  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

and  devoted ;  she  loved  your  father  well  enough  to  give  up  every 
social  aim  and  every  worldly  advantage  for  his  sake.  She  died 
loving  him.  He  died — I  should  not  wonder  if  he  died  of 
sorrow  for  her  loss.  For  hearts  can  break,  though  the  Faculty 
deny  it." 

He  swung  about  to  leave  the  room.  She  was  murmuring 
over  her  new-found  treasure. 

"  '  Lucy  to  Richard  '  .  .  .  '  Richard '  .  .  ."  she  repeated. 
A  wave  of  roseate  colour  broke  over  her  with  the  memory  of 
the  hand  that  had  touched  and  the  voice  that  had  spoken  to  her 
in  her  beatific  vision  of  the  previous  morning,  when  the  be- 
loved had  come  back  from  Paradise  to  lay  a  charge  upon  her 
child. 

"  My  father  knew  the  Mother."  It  was  not  a  question,  it 
was  a  statement  of  the  fact.  Saxham  wondered  at  the  assured 
tone  as  he  told  her: 

"  It  is  true.  They  had  been  friends — in  the  world  they 
both  gave  up  afterwards — the  man  for  the  love  that  is  of  earth, 
the  woman  for  the  love  of  Heaven." 

"  She  never  told  me  then,  but  she  must  have  known  who  I 
was  from  the  beginning,"  Lynette  ventured.  "  She  gave  me 
the  surname  of  Mildare  because  it  belonged  to  me.  Do  not  you 
think  so  too?" 

Saxham  made  no  answer.  He  swung  about  to  leave  the 
room.  She  slipped  the  miniature  into  her  bosom,  where  his 
letter  had  lain,  and  asked: 

"  Where  are  you  going?  " 

He  answered,  with  his  eyes  avoiding  hers: 

"  You  have  been  travelling  all  night ;  you  must  be  tired  and 
hungry.  Go  to  bed  and  try  to  rest,  while  I  forage  for  you 
downstairs.  You  shall  not  suffer  for  lack  of  attendance,  I  am 
quite  a  good  cook,  as  you  shall  find  presently.  When  you  have 
eaten  you  must  sleep,  and  then  we  will  talk  of  your  returning 
home  to  your  friends." 

"  Are  not  you  my  chief  friend  ?  "  she  asked.  "  Is  not.  this 
my  home  ?  " 

He  avoided  her  look,  replying  awkwardly: 

"  Hardly,  when  there  are  no  servants  to  wait  upon 
you!" 

"  May  I  not  know  why  you  sent  them  away?  " 

He  said,  his  haggard  profile  turned  to  her,  a  muscle  of  his 
pale  cheek  twitching: 

"I  am  going  away  myself:  that  is  the  reason    why.      All 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  607 

debts  are  paid.  I  have  completed  all  the  arrangements,  en- 
tailing the  minimum  of  annoyance  upon  you." 

"  May  I  not  come  with  you  upon  your  voyage?  " 

His  eyes  were  still  averted  as  his  grey  lips  answered: 

"  No.     I  am  going  where  you  cannot  come." 

"  Owen,  tell  me  where  you  are  going?  " 

Her  tone  of  entreaty  knocked  at  the  door  of  his  barred  heart. 
He  winced  palpably.  "  Excuse  me,"  he  said,  and  took  another 
step  towards  the  door.  She  stopped  him  with: 

"  You  are  not  excused  from  answering  my  question !  " 

"  I  am  going  just  to  get  you  some  breakfast,"  said  Saxham 
curtly,  "  and  then  to  find  a  woman  to  attend  upon  you 
here." 

"  I  need  no  breakfast,  thanks.    I  want  no  attendant." 

"You  must  have  someone,"  said  Saxham  brusquely. 

"  I  must  have  your  answer,"  she  said  in  a  tone  quite  new 
to  him.  "  What  is  your  secret  purpose?  What  are  you  hiding 
from  me  in  that  closed  hand  ?  " 

He  moved  his  left  hand  slightly,  undoing  the  fingers  and 
giving  a  glimpse  of  the  empty  palm. 

"  Not  that  hand.  The  other."  She  pointed  to  the  clenched 
right.  How  tall  she  had  grown,  and  how  womanly !  "  Love 
has  done  this !  "  was  his  aching  thought.  She  seemed  a  princess 
of  faery,  fresh  from  a  bath  of  magic  waters.  Her  very  gait 
was  changed,  her  every  gesture  seemed  new.  Purpose  and  de- 
cision and  quiet  self-control  breathed  from  her;  her  voice  had 
tones  in  it  unheard  of  him  before.  Her  eyes  were  radiant  as 
he  had  never  yet  seen  them,  golden  stars  shining  in  a  pale  glory 
that  was  her  face.  .  .  . 

"  All  that  for  the  other  man !  Well,  let  him  have  it!" 
thought  Saxham,  and  involuntarily  glanced  at  his  clenched 
right  hand. 

"  Please  open  it  and  show  me  what  you  have  there,"  she 
begged  him. 

Her  tones  were  full  of  pleading  music.  His  face  hardened 
grimly  to  withstand.  His  muscular  fingers  closed  in  a  vice- 
like  grip  over  what  he  held.  But  she  moved  to  him  with  a 
whisper  of  soft  trailing  garments,  and  took  the  shut  hand  in 
both  her  own.  She  bent  her  exquisite  head  and  kissed  it,  and 
Saxham's  fingers  of  iron  were  no  more  than  wax.  Something 
clicked  in  his  throat  as  they  opened,  that  was  like  the  turning 
of  a  rusty  lock.  And  the  little  blue  phial,  with  the  yellow 
poison-label,  gave  up  his  deadly  intention  to  her  eyes.  She 


6o8  ONE  BRAVER   THING 

cried  out  and  snatched  it,  and  flung  it.  away  from  her.  It  fell 
soundlessly  on  the  soft  carpet,  and  rolled  under  a  chair. 

"  Owen!      You  would  have  .  .  .  done  that?  .  .  ." 

Divine  reproach  was  in  the  face  she  turned  on  his.  .  .  . 
He  snarled: 

"  It  would  have  been  done  if  you  had  not  come  back." 

"I  thank  our  Lord  I  came!  ...  It  is  His  doing!  Once 
He  had  sent  me  knowledge,  I  could  not  stay  away.  ...  For, 
Owen,  I  have  made  a  discovery.  .  .  ." 

"  Yes."  He  laughed  harshly.  "  As  I  knew  you  would  one 
day.  Never  was  I  fool  enough  to  doubt  what,  would  come." 

She  put  both  her  hands  to  her  lips  and  kissed  them,  and 
held  them  out  to  him.  He  cried  out: 

"What  is  this?  What  interlude  of  folly  are  you  playing? 
It  was  your  freedom  you  came  to  demand.  You  have  not  told 
who  the  man  you  love  is.  I  do  not  ask — I  will  not  even 
know !  He  is  your  choice ;  that  is  enough." 

"  He  is  my  choice!  "  Her  bosom  heaved  to  the  time  of  her 
quickened  breathing.  The  splendid  colour  rose  over  the  edge 
of  the  lace  scarf  that  was  loosely  knotted  about  her  sweet 
throat,  and  surged  to  the  pure  temples,  and  climbed  to  the 
line  of  the  rich  red-brown  hair. 

"  You  will  soon  be  free  to  tell  the  world  so.  Marry  him," 
said  Saxham,  "  and  forget  the  dreary  months  dragged  out  be- 
side the  sot.  For  I  who  promised  you  I  would  never  fail  you ; 
I  who  told  you  so  confidently  that  I  was  cured  of  the  accursed 
liquor-crave;  I — well,  I  reckoned  without  my  host " 

His  laugh  jarred  her  heartstrings.     She  cried  out  hotly: 

"  You  did  not  deceive  me  wilfully.  You  believed  what  you 
said!" 

"  I  believed  .  .  .  and  the  first  snare  set  for  me  tripped  my 
heels  up,"  said  Saxham.  "  I  paid  the  penalty  of  being  cock- 
sure. And  I  had  not  the  common  decency  to  die  then  and  re- 
lease you.  True,  there  were  reasons — they  are  swept  away 
now.  ...  I  sent,  you  to  Wales  that  I  might  be  free  of  the 
sight  of  you,  that  I  might  end  the  sordid  comedy  and  have 
done.  You  have  come  too  soon.  There's  no  more  to  be  said 
than  that!" 

"  There  is  this  to  be  said.  .  .  ." 

She  came  towards  him,  her  tender  eyes  wooing  his.  Her  lips 
were  parted,  her  breath  came  in  sighs. 

"What  you  have  told  me  is  sorrowful,  but  not.  hopeless. 
iYou  were  cured  once — you  will  be  cured  again.  And  I  will 


ONE   BRAVER   THING  609 

help  you — comfort  you — suffer  with  you   and   pray   for  you. 
You  shall  never  be  alone,  my  husband,  any  more." 

He  was  melting.  His  hard  blue  eyes  had  the  softening 
gleam  of  tears.  He  stretched  out  his  hands  and  took  hers,  hold- 
ing them  close.  He  stooped,  and  let  his  burning  lips  rest  on 
the  cool,  fragrant  flesh  of  hers,  and  said  tenderly: 

"  Dear  saint,  sweet  would-be  martyr,  you  shall  not  sacrifice 
your  long  life's  happiness  to  me.  Rather  than  live  on  sane 
and  sober,  to  see  you  famishing  beside  me  for  the  want  of 
Love,  I  would  die  a  thousand  deaths,  Lynette.  Try  to  be- 
lieve it.  You  shall  be  free.  You  must  be  free,  my  child !  " 

She  winced  as  though  he  had  stabbed  her,  and  cried  out: 

"  Why  do  you  harp  continually  upon  your  death  ?  I  will 
not  listen  to  you.  If  I  do  not  desire  to  be  '  free,'  as  you  term 
it,  what  barrier  is  there  between  us  now?" 

He  said,  amazed: 

"  What  barrier?  Do  you  ask  what  barrier?  Your  love — 
for  that  other  man !  " 

"  There  is  no  other  man !  "  She  looked  him  full  in  the 
eyes  now,  with  a  lovely  colour  dyeing  her  sweet  cheeks,  and 
an  exquisite  quivering  wistfulness  about  her  mouth.  She 
moved  so  near  that  her  fragrant  breath  fanned  warm  upon  his 
eyelids.  "  There  is  no  man  but  you — there  will  never  be  any 
other  man.  .  .  .  Dearest  " — her  hands  were  on  his  shoulders ; 
her  bosom  rose  and  fell  close  to  his  broad  breast — "  I  have 
been  very  slow  at  learning.  But — Owen ! — I  love  you  as  your 
wife  should  love !  " 

"You  cannot!  "  He  stepped  back  sharply,  and  her  hands 
fell  from  him.  "  You  shall  not !  I  am  not.  worthy.  I 
thought  so  once.  ...  I  know  better  now.  Do  not  deceive 
yourself.  Love  cannot  be  compelled  at  will,  and  I  have  ceased 
to  wish — to  desire  yours.  All  I  want  now  is  rest  and  silence 
and  forgetfulness — where  alone  they  may  be  found."  He  drew, 
a  breath  of  weariness. 

"  If  you  have  ceased  to  wish  for  love  from  me,  that  is  my 
punishment,"  she  said,  very  pale.  "  For  without  yours  I  can- 
not live!  God  hears  me  speak  the  truth!" 

"Lynette!  .  .  ." 

He  swayed  like  a  tree  cut  through  and  falling.  She  caught 
his  hands,  and  drew  them  to  her  heart. 

"  I  have  been  blind  and  deaf  and  senseless.  I  am  changed, 
I  am  altered — I  am  awake  at  last!  I  know  how  great  and 
precious  is  the  love  you  have  given  me.  ...  Do  not  tell  me  it 


610  ONE  BRAVER  THING 

is  mine  no  longer.  Owen,  if  you  do  that,  it  is  I  who  shall 
die!" 

A  sob  tore  its  way  through  him.  His  great  frame  quivered. 
His  mask-like  immobility  broke  up  ...  was  gone.  Her  own 
tears  falling,  she  stretched  her  arms  to  him;  yet  while  his  eyes 
devoured  her,  his  arms  hungered  for  her,  he  delayed,  knitting 
his  brows.  She  caught  a  word  or  two,  whispered  brokenly. 
He  asked  himself:  "  Can  this  be  Love?" 

"It  is  Love!  Oh,  Owen,  I  kissed  you  one  night,  when  I 
found  you  sleeping.  When  will  you  kiss  me  back  again  ?  " 

He  cried  out  wildly  upon  God,  and  fell  down  upon  his  knees 
before  her.  He  reached  out  groping,  desperate  arms,  and 
snatched  her  close.  His  deep,  shuddering  breaths  vibrated 
through  her;  her  own  knees  were  trembling,  her  bosom  in 
storm.  She  swayed  like  a  young  palm  nearer  and  nearer;  he 
felt  her  hands  about  his  neck,  her  tears  upon  his  face. 

"  Dear  love,  dearest  husband,  I  have  a  message  for  you. 
Owen,  shall  I  tell  you  what  it  is?" 

"  Tell  me,  my  heart's  beloved,"  said  Saxham  in  a  whisper. 

Their  looks  united  in  azure  fire  and  golden.  Their  breath 
mingled,  their  lips  were  very  near.  She  felt  his  strength  about 
her;  he  drank  in  her  sweetness.  The  kiss,  the  supreme  boon, 
was  as  yet  withheld. 

She  whispered.  .  .  . 

"  I  awakened  in  the  light  of  the  early  morning — the  morn- 
ing of  the  day  I  came  to  you.  She  sat  beside  me — the  Mother, 
Owen!  her  dear  hand  on  my  heart,  her  dear  eyes  waiting  for 
mine.  She  stooped  and  kissed  me  ...  it  was  real  ...  I 
felt  it.  She  said:  'Love  him  as  I  loved  your  father!  Be  to 
a  child  of  his  what  I  have  been  to  you !  " 

His  arms  wrapped  round  her,  gathered  her,  enfolded  her. 
His  scalding  tears  wetted  her  white  bosom  as  she  drew  the 
square  black  head  to  rest  there,  and  drooped  her  cheek  upon 
the  broad  brow.  Her  rich  hair,  loosed  from  its  coils,  fell  in 
a  heavy  silken  rope  upon  his  shoulder  .  .  .  their  lips  met  in 
the  nuptial  sacramental  kiss.  .  .  . 


THE  END 


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Yellow  Circle,  The.    By  Charles  E.  Walk. 


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bookseller  at  50  cents  per  volume. 


The  Shepherd  of  the  Hills.    By  Harold  Bell  Wright. 

Jane  Cable.    By  George  Barr  McCutcheon. 

Abner  Daniel.     By  Will  N.  Harben. 

The  Far  Horizon.     By  Lucas  Malet. 

The  Halo.     By  Bettina  von  Hutten. 

Jerry  Junior.    By  Jean  Webster. 

The  Powers  and  Maxine.     By  C.  N.  and  A.  M.  Williamson. 

The  Balance  of  Power.    By  Arthur  Goodrich. 

Adventures  of  Captain  Kettle.    By  Cutcliffe  Hyne. 

Adventures  of  Gerard.     By  A.  Conan  Doyle. 

Adventures  of  Sherlock  Holmes.     By  A.  Conan  Doyle. 

Arms  and  the  Woman.     By  Harold  MacGrath. 

Artemus  Ward's  Works   (extra  illustrated). 

At  the  Mercy  of  Tiberius.     By  Augusta  Evans  Wilson. 

Awakening  of  Helena  Richie.     By  Margaret  Deland. 

Battle  Ground,  The.     By  Ellen  Glasgow. 

Belle  of  Bowling  Green,  The.     By  Amelia  E.  Barr. 

Ben  Blair.     By  Will  Lillibridge. 

Best  Man,  The.     By  Harold  MacGrath. 

Beth  Norvell.    By  Randall  Parrish. 

Bob  Hampton  of  Placer.     By  Randall  Parrish. 

Bob,  Son  of  Battle.     By  Alfred  Ollivant. 

Brass  Bowl,  The.     By  Louis  Joseph  Vance. 

Brethren,  The.     By  H.  Rider  Haggard. 

Broken  Lance,   The.     By   Herbert   Quick. 

By  Wit  of  Women.    By  Arthur  W.  Marchmont 

Call  of  the  Blood,  The.    By  Robert  Kitchens. 

Cap'n  Eri.     By  Joseph  C.  Lincoln. 

Cardigan.     By  Robert  W.   Chambers. 

Car  of  Destiny,  The.    By  C.  N.  and  A.  N.  Williamson. 

Casting  Away  of  Mrs.  Leeks  and  Mrs.  Aleshine.     By  Frank 

R.  Stockton. 
Cecilia's  Lovers.    By  Amelia  E.  Barr. 


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Circle,  The.     By  Katherine  Cecil  Thurston  (author  of  "The 

Masquerader,"  "The  Gambler"). 

Colonial  Free  Lance,  A.    By  Chauncey  C.  Hotchkiss. 
Conquest  of  Canaan,  The.    By  Booth  Tarkington. 
Courier  of  Fortune,  A.     By  Arthur  W.  Marchmont. 
Darrow  Enigma,  The.     By  Melvin  Severy. 
Deliverance,  The.     By  Ellen  Glasgow. 
Divine  Fire,  The.     By  May  Sinclair. 
Empire  Builders.     By  Francis  Lynde. 
Exploits  of  Brigadier  Gerard.     By  A.  Conan  Doyle. 
Fighting  Chance,  The.     By  Robert  W.  Chambers. 
For  a  Maiden  Brave.    By  Chauncey  C.  Hotchkiss. 

Fugitive  Blacksmith,  The.     By  Chas.   D.  Stewart. 

God's  Good  Man.    By  Marie  Corelli. 

Heart's  Highway,  The.     By  Mary  E.  Wilkins. 

Holladay  Case,  The.    By  Burton  Egbert  Stevenson. 

Hurricane  Island.    By  H.  B.  Marriott  Watson. 

In  Defiance  of  the  King.     By  Chauncey  C.  Hotchkiss. 

Indifference  of  Juliet,  The.     By  Grace  S.  Richmond. 

Infelice.     By  Augusta  Evans  Wilson. 

Lady  Betty  Across  the  Water.     By  C.  N.  and  A.   M.  Will-. 

iamson. 

Lady  of  the  Mount,  The.    By  Frederic  S.  Isham. 
Lane  That  Had  No  Turning,  The.    By  Gilbert  Parker. 
Langford  of  the  Three  Bars.     By  Kate  and  Virgil  D.  Boyles. 
Last  Trail,  The.     By  Zane  Grey. 
Leavenworth  Case,  The.    By  Anna  Katharine  Green. 
Lilac  Sunbonnet,  The.     By  S.  R.  Crockett. 
Lin  McLean.    By  Owen  Wister. 
Long  Night,  The.     By  Stanley  J.  Weyman. 
Maid  at  Arms,  The.    By  Robert  W.  Chambers. 


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(Man  from  Red  Keg,  The.     By  Eugene  Thwing. 

Marthon  Mystery,  The.    By  Burton  Egbert  Stevenson. 

Memoirs  of  Sherlock  Holmes.    By  A.  Conan  Doyle. 

Millionaire  Baby,  The.     By  Anna  Katharine  Green. 

Missourian,  The.     By  Eugene  P.  Lyle,  Jr. 

Mr.  Barnes,  American.    By  A.  C.  Gunter. 

Mr.  Pratt.     By  Joseph  C.  Lincoln. 

My  Friend  the  Chauffeur.     By  C.  N.  and  A.  M.  Williamson. 

My  Lady  of  the  North.     By  Randall  Parrish. 

Mystery  of  June  13th.     By  Melvin  L.  Severy. 

Mystery  Tales.     By  Edgar  Allan  Poe. 

Nancy  Stair.     By  Elinor  Macartney  Lane. 

Order  No.  11.     By  Caroline  Abbot  Stanley. 

Pam.     By  Bettina  von  Hutten. 

Pam  Decides.    By  Bettina  von  Hutten. 

Partners  of  the  Tide.     By  Joseph  C.  Lincoln. 

Phra  the  Phoenician.     By  Edwin  Lester  Arnold. 

President,  The.    By  Afred  Henry  Lewis. 

Princess  Passes,  The.    By  C.  N.  and  A.  M.  Williamson. 

Princess  Virginia,  The.     By  C.  N.  and  A.  M.  Williamson. 

Prisoners.    By  Mary  Cholmondeley. 

Private  War,  The.    By  Louis  Joseph  Vance. 

Prodigal  Son,  The.    By  Hall  Caine. 

/Quickening,  The.    By  Francis  Lynde. 
Richard  the  Brazen.    By  Cyrus  T.  Brady  and  Edvr.  Peple. 
Rose  of  the  World.     By  Agnes  and  Egerton  Castle. 
Running  Water.    By  A.  E.  W.  Mason. 
Sarita  the  Carlist.     By  Arthur  W.  Marchmont. 
Seats  of  the  Mighty,  The.     By  Gilbert  Parker. 
Sir  Nigel.     By  A.  Conan  Doyle. 
Sir  Richard  Calmady.     By  Lucas  Malet. 
Speckled  Bird,  A.    By  Augusta  Evans  Wilson. 


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Spirit  of  the  Border,  The.     By  Zane  Grey. 

Spoilers,  The.     By  Rex  Beach. 

Squire  Phin.     By  Holman  F.  Day. 

Stooping  Lady,  The.       By  Maurice  Hewlett. 

Subjection  of  Isabel  Carnaby.  By  Ellen  Thorneycroft  Fowler. 

Sunset  Trail,  The.     By  Alfred  Henry  Lewis. 

Sword  of  the  Old  Frontier,  A.     By  Randall  Parrish. 

Tales  of  Sherlock  Holmes.     By  A.  Conan  Doyle. 

That  Printer  of  Udell's.     By  Harold  Bell  Wright. 

Throwback,  The.     By  Alfred  Henry  Lewis. 

Trail  of  the  Sword,  The.     By  Gilbert  Parker. 

Treasure  of  Heaven,  The.     By  Marie  Corelli. 

Two  Vanrevels,  The.     By  Booth  Tarkington. 

Up  From  Slavery.     By  Booker  T.  Washington. 

Vashti.     By  Augusta   Evans   Wilson. 

Viper  of  Milan,  The  (original  edition).     By  Marjorie  Bowen. 

Voice  of  the  People,  The.     By  Ellen  Glasgow. 

Wheel  of  Life,  The.     By  Ellen  Glasgow. 

When  Wilderness  Was  King.    By  Randall  Parrish. 

Where  the  Trail  Divides.     By  Will  LilHbridge. 

Woman  in  Grey,  A.     By  Mrs.  C.  N.  Williamson. 

Woman  in  the  Alcove,  The.    By  Anna  Katharine  Green. 

Younger  Set,  The.     By  Robert  W.  Chambers. 

The  Weavers.    By  Gilbert  Parker. 

The  Little  Brown  Jug  at  Kildare.     By  Meredith  Nicholson. 

The  Prisoners  of  Chance.     By  Randall  Parrish. 

My  Lady  of  Cleve.     By  Percy  J.  Hartley. 

Loaded  Dice.     By  Ellery  H.  Clark. 

Get  Rich  Quick  Wallingford.     By  George  Randolph  Chester. 

The  Orphan.     By  Clarence  Mulford. 

A  Gentleman  of  France.    By  Stanley  J.  Weyman. 


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Purple  Parasol,  The.    By  George  Barr  McCutcheon. 
Princess  Dehra,  The.    By  John  Reed  Scott. 
Making  of  Bobby  Burnit,  The.    By  George  Randolph 
Chester. 

Last  Voyage  of  the  Donna  Isabel,  The.     By  Randall 

Parrish. 

Bronze  Bell,  The.    By  Louis  Joseph  Vance. 
Pole  Baker.    By  Will  N.  Harben. 
Pour  Million,  The.    By  O.  Henry. 
Idols.    By  William  J.  Locke. 
Wayfarers,  The.    By  Mary  Stewart  Cutting. 
Held  for  Orders.    By  Frank  H.  Spearman. 
Story  of  the  Outlaw,  The.    By  Emerson  Hough. 
Mistress  of  Brae  Farm,  The.    By  Rosa  N.  Carey. 
Explorer,  The.    By  William  Somerset  Maugham. 
Abbess  of  Vlaye,  The.    By  Stanley  Weyman. 
Alton  of  Somasco.    By  Harold  Bindloss. 
Ancient  Law,  The.    By  Ellen  Glasgow. 
Barrier,  The.    By  Rex  Beach. 
Bar  20.    By  Clarence  E.  Mulford. 
Beloved  Vagabond,  The.    By  William  J.  Locke. 
Beulah.     (Illustrated  Edition.)     By  Augusta  J.  Evans. 
Chaperon,  The.    By  C.  N.  and  A.  M.  Williamson. 
Colonel  Greatheart.    By  H.  C.  Bailey. 
Dissolving  Circle,  The.    By  Will  Lillibridge. 
Elusive  Isabel.    By  Jacques  Futrelle. 
Fair  Moon  of  Bath,  The.    By  Elizabeth  Ellis. 
54-40  or  Fight.    By  Emerson  Hough. 


Good  Fiction  Worth  Reading, 

A  series  of  romances  containing  several  of  the  old  favorites  in  the  field 
of  historical  fiction,  replete  with  powerful  romances  of  love  and  diplomacy 
that  excel  in  thrilling  and  absorbing  interest. 


D  ARNLEV.  A  Romance  of  the  times  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Cardinal  Wolsey. 
By  G.  P.  R.  James.  Cloth,  i2mo.  with  four  illustrations  by  J.  Watson  Davis. 
I  rice,  Ji. oo. 

In  point  of  publication,  "Darnley"  is  that  work  by  Mr.  James  which 
follows  "Richelieu,"  and,  if  rumor  can  be  credited,  it  was  owing  to  the  ad- 
vice and  insistence  of  our  own  Washington  Irving  that  we  are  indebted 
primarily  for  the  story,  the  young  author  questioning  whether  he  could 
properly  paint  the  difference  in  the  characters  of  the  two  great  cardinals. 
And  it  is  not  surprising  that  James  should  have  hesitated;  he  had  been 
*mlnently  successful  in  giving  to  the  world  the  portrait  of  Richelieu  as  a 
man,  and  by  attempting  a  similar  task  with  Wolsey  as  the  theme,  was 
much  like  tempting  fortune.  Irving  insisted  that  "Darnley"  came  natur- 
ally in  sequence,  and  this  opinion  being  supported  by  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
the  author  set  about  the  work. 

As  a  historical  romance  "Darnley"  is  a  book  that  can  be  taken  up 
pleasurably  again  and  again,  for  there  is  about  it  that  subtle  charm  which 
those  who  are  strangers  to  the  works  of  G.  P.  R.  James  have  claimed  wa* 
only  to  b«  imparted  by  Dumas. 

If  there  was  nothing  more  about  the  work  to  attract  especial  attention. 
the  account  of  the  meeting  of  the  kings  on  the  historic  "field  of  the  cloth  of 
cold"  would  entitle  the  story  to  the  most  favorable  consideration  of  every 
reader. 

There  Is  really  but  little  pure  romance  in  this  story,  for  the  author  ha* 
taken  care  to  imagine  love  passages  only  between  those  whom  history  ha* 
credited  with  baring  entertained  the  tender  passion  one  for  another,  and 
ke  succeeds  in  making:  such  lovers  as  all  the  world  must  love. 

CAPTAIN  BRAND,  OP  THE  SCHOONER  CENTIPEDE.  By  I.ieut. 
Henry  A.  Wise,  U.S. N.  (Harry  Gringo).  Cloth,  izmo.  with  four  illustra- 
tions by  J.  Watson  Davis.  Price,  $1.00. 

The  re-publication  of  this  story  will  please  those  lovers  of  sea  yarn* 
"Who  delight  in  so  much  of  the  salty  flavor  of  the  ocean  as  can  come  through 
the  medium  of  a  printed  page,  for  never  has  a  story  of  the  sea  and  those 
"who  go  down  in  ships"  been  written  by  one  more  familiar  with  the  scene* 
depicted. 

The  one  book  of  this  gifted  author  which  is  best  remembered,  and  which 
•will  b«  read  with  pleasure  for  many  years  to  come,  is  "Captain  Brand," 
•who,  as  the  author  states  on  his  title  page,  was  a  "pirate  of  eminence  in 
the  West  Indies."  As  a  sea  story  pure  and  simple,  "Captain  Brand"  has 
never  been  excelled,,  and  as  a  story  of  piratical  life,  told  without  the  usual 
embellishments  of  blood  and  thunder,  it  has  no  equal. 

NICK  OP  THE  WOODS.  A  story  of  the  Early  Settlers  of  Kentucky.  By 
Robert  Montgomery  Bird.  Cloth,  12100.  with  four  illustrations  by  J.  Watson 
Davis.  Price,  Ji.oo. 

This  most  popular  novel  and  thrilling  story  of  early  frontier  life  in 
Kentucky  was  originally  published  in  the  year  1837.  The  novel,  long  out  of 
•print,  had  in  its  day  a  phenomenal  sale,  for  Its  realistic  presentation  of 
Indian  and  frontier  life  in  the  early  days  of  settlement  in  the  South,  nar- 
lated  in  the  tale  with  all  the  art  of  a  practiced  writer.  A  very  charming 
love  romance  runs  through  the  story.  This  new  and  tasteful  edition  of 
"Nick  of  the  Woods"  will  be  certain  to  make  many  new  admirers  for 
this  enchanting  story  from  Dr.  Bird's  clever  and  versatile  pen. 

Itor  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  sent  postpaid  on  receipt  of  price  by  the  pub- 
lishers, A.  L.  BURT  COMPANY,  52-58  Duane  St.,  New  York. 


Good  Fiction  Worth  Reading'. 

A  series  of  romances  containing  several  of  the  old  favorites  in  the  field 
of  historical  fiction,  replete  with  powerful  romances  of  love  and  diplomacy 
that  excel  in  thrilling  and  absorbing-  interest. 


WINDSOR  CASTLE.  A  Historical  Romance  of  the  Reignof  Henry  VIII., 
Catharine  of  Aragoa  and  Anne  Boleyn.  By  Wm.  Harrison  Ainsworth,  Cloth. 
t2mo.  with  four  illustrations  by  George  Cruikshank.  Price,  $1.00. 

"TVindsor  Castle"  Is  the  story  of  Henry  VIII.,  Catharine,  and  Anne 
Boleyn.  "Bluff  King  Hal,"  although  a  well-loved  monarch,  was  none  too 
good  a  one  in  many  ways.  Of  all  his  selfishness  and  unwarrantable  acts, 
rone  was  more  discreditable  than  his  divorce  from  Catharine,  and  his  mar- 
Hage  to  the  beautiful  Anne  Boleyn.  The  King's  love  was  as  brief  as  it 
was  vehement.  Jane  Seymour,  waiting  maid  on  the  Queen,  attracted  him. 
end  Anne  Eoleyn  was  forced  to  the  block  to  make  room  for  her  successor. 
JTbia  romance  is  one  of  extreme  interest  to  all  readers. 

HORSESHOE  ROBINSON.  A  tale  of  the  Tory  Ascendency  in  South  Caro- 
lina in  1780.  By  John  P.  Kennedy.  Cloth,  izmo.  with  four  illustrations  by  J. 
IVatson  Davis.  Price,  $1.00. 

Among  the  old  favorites  In  tie  field  of  what  Is  known  as  historical  fic- 
tion, there  are  none  which  appeal  to  a.  larger  number  of  Americans  than 
3Iorseshoe  Robinson,  and  this  because  It  is  the  only  story  which  depicts 
v-ith  fidelity  to  the  facts  the  heroic  efforts  of  the  colonists  in  South  Caro- 
lina to  defend  their  homes  against  the  brutal  oppression  of  the  British 
under  such  leaders  as  Cornwallis  and  Tarleton. 

The  reader  is  charmed  with  the  story  of  love  which  forms  the  thread 
c-f  the  tale,  and  then  impressed  with  the  wealth  of  detail  concerning  those 
times.  The  picture  of  the  manifold  sufferings  of  the  people,  is  never  over- 
drawn, but  painted  faithfully  and  honestly  by  one  who  spared  neither 
time  nor  labor  In  his  efforts  to  present  In  this  charming  love  story  all  that 
r  rice  in  blood  and  tears  which  the  Carolinians  paid  as  their  share  in  the 
winning  of  the  republic. 

Take  it  all  in  all,  "Horseshoe  Robinson"  is  a  work  which  should  be 
found  on  every  book-shelf,  not  only  because  It  Is  a  most  entertaining 
story,  but  because  of  the  wealth  of  valuable  information  concerning  the 
colonists  which  it  contains.  That  It  has  been  brought  out  once  »ore,  well 
illustrated,  is  something  which  will  give  pleasure  to  thousands  who  have 
long  desired  an  opportunity  to  read  the  story  again,  and  to  the  many  who 
bave  tried  vainly  in  these  latter  days  to  procure  a  copy  that  they  might 
read  it  for  the  first  time. 

THE  PEARL  OP  ORR'S  ISLAND.  A  story  of  the  Coast  of  Maine.  By 
Harriet  Beecher  Stowe.  Cloth,  izmo.  Illustrated.  Price,  $1.00. 

Written  prior  to  1S62,  the  "Pearl  of  GIT'S  Island"  Is  ever  new;  a  bock 
filled  with  delicate  fancies,  such  as  seemingly  array  themselves  anew  each 
time  one  reads  them.  One  sees  the  "sea  like  an  unbroken  mirror  all 
around  the  pine-girt,  lonely  shores  of  Orr's  Island,"  and  straightway 
comes  "the  heavy,  hollow  moan  of  the  surf  on  the  beach,  like  the  wild 
sngry  howl  of  some  savage  animal." 

Who  can  read  of  the  beginning  of  that  sweet  life,  named  Mara,  which 
came  Into  this  world  under  the  very  shadow  of  the  Death  angel's  wings, 
•\vithout  having  an  intense  desire  to  know  how  the  premature  bud  blos- 
somed? Again  and  again  one  lingers  over  the  descriptions  of  the  char- 
acter of  that  baby  boy  Moses,  who  came  through  the  tempest,  amid  the 
angry  billows,  pillowed  on  his  dead  mother's  breast 

There  Is  no  more  fai'thful  portrayal  of  New  England  life  than  that 
•which  Mrs.  gtowe  gives  in  "The  Pearl  of  Orr's  Island." 

For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  sent  postpaid  on  receipt  of  price  by  the  pub- 
lishers, A.  L.  BURT  COMPANY,  53-58  Duanc  St.,  New  York. 


Good  Fiction  Worth  Reading. 

A  series  of  romances  containing  several  of  the  old  favorites  in  the  field 
of  historical  fiction,  replete  with  powerful  romances  of  love  and  diplomacy 
that  excel  in  thrilling  and  absorbing  interest. 


GUY  FAWKES.  A  Romance  of  the  Gunpowder  Treason.  By  Win.  Harri- 
8on  Ainsworth.  Cloth,  izmo.  with  four  illustrations  by  George  CruLkshank. 
Price,  $1.00. 

The  "Gunpowder  Plot"  was  a  modest  attempt  to  blow  up  Parliament, 
the  King  and  his  Counsellors.  James  of  Scotland,  then  King  of  England, 
•was  weak-minded  and  extravagant.  He  hit  upon  the  efficient  scheme  of 
extorting  money  from  the  people  by  imposing  taxes  on  the  Catholics.  In 
their  natural  resentment  to  this  extortion,  a  handful  of  bold  spirits  con- 
cluded to  overthrow  the  government.  Finally  the  plotters  were  arrested, 
and  the  King  put  to  torture  Guy  Fawkes  and  the  other  prisoners  with, 
royal  vigor.  A  very  intense  love  »tory  runs  through  the  entire  romance. 

THE  SPIRIT  OP  THE  BORDER.  A  Romance  of  the  Early  Settlers  in  the 
Ohio  Valley.  By  Zane  Grey.  Cloth,  ismo.  with  four  illustrations  by  J.  Watson. 
Davis.  Price,  |i. oo. 

A  book  rather  out  of  the  ordinary  Is  this  "Spirit  of  the  Border."  Th« 
main  thread  of  the  story  has  to  do  with  the  work  of  the  Moravian  mis- 
eionaries  in  the  Ohio  Valley.  Incidentally  the  reader  is  given  details  of  the 
frontier  life  of  those  hardy  pioneers  who  broke  the  wilderness  for  the  plant- 
ing of  this  great  nation.  Chief  among  these,  as  a  matter  of  course,  ia 
Lewis  Wetzel,  one  of  the  most  peculiar,  and  at  the  same  time  the  most 
admirable  of  all  the  brave  men  who  spent  their  lives  battling  with  the 
•avage  foe,  that  others  might  dwell  in  comparative  security. 

Details  of  the  establishment  and  destruction  of  the  Moravian  "Village 
of  Peace"  are  given  at  some  length,  and  with  minute  description.  The 
efforts  to  Christianize  the  Indians  are  described  as  they  never  have  been 
before,  and  the  author  has  depicted  the  characters  of  the  leaders  of  tha 
several  Indian  tribes  with  great  care,  which  of  itself  will  be  of  interest  td 
the  student. 

By  no  means  least  among  the  charms  of  the  story  are  the  vlvfd  word— 
pictures  of  the  thrilling  adventures,  and  the  Intense  paintings  of  the  beau- 
ties of  nature,  as  seen  in  the  almost  unbroken  forests. 

It  is  the  spirit  of  the  frontier  which  is  described,  and  one  can  by  it, 
perhaps,  the  better  understand  why  men,  and  women,  too,  willingly  braved 
every  privation  and  danger  that  the  westward  progress  of  the  star  of  em- 
pire might  be  the  more  certain  and  rapid.  A  love  story,  simple  and  tender, 
runs  through  the  book. 

RICHELIEU.  A  tale  of  France  in  the  reign  of  King  1/Miis  XIIL  By  G.  P. 
R.  James.  Cloth,  12010.  with  four  illustrations  by  J.  Vv'atson  Davis.  Price,  £1.00. 

In  1829  Mr.  James  published  his  first  romance,  "Richelieu,"  and  waa 
recognized  at  once  as  one  of  the  masters  of  the  craft. 

In  this  book  he  laid  the  story  during  those  later  days  of  the  great  car- 
dinal's life,  when  his  power  was  beginning  to  wane,  but  while  it  was 
yet  sufficiently  strong  to  pe-mit  now  and  then  of  volcanic  outbursts  which 
overwhelmed  foes  and  carried  friends  to  the  topmost  wave  of  prosperity. 
One  of  the  most  striking  portions  of  the  story  is  that  of  Cinq  Mar's  conspir- 


For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  sent  postpaid  on  receipt  of  price  by  the  pub- 
lishers,  A.  L.  BURT  COMPANY,  53-58  Duane  St.,  New  York. 


Good  Fiction  Worth  Reading. 

A  series  of  romances  containing  several  of  the  old  favorites  in  the  field 
of  historical  fiction,  replete  with  powerful  romances  of  love  and  diplomacy 
that  excel  in  thrilling  and  absorbing  interest. 


A  COLONIAL.  FREE-LANCE.  A  story  of  American  Colonial  Times.  By 
Chauncey  C.  Hotchkiss.  Cloth,  I2mo.  with  four  illustrations  by  J.  "Watson 
Davis.  Price,  fi.oo. 

A  book  that  appeals  to  Americans  as  a  vivid  picture  of  Revolutionary 
scenes.  The  story  is  a  strong  one,  a  thrilling  one.  It  causes  the  true 
American  to  flush  with  excitement,  to  devour  chapter  after  chapter,  until 
the  eyes  smart,  and  it  fairly  smokes  with  patriotism.  The  love  story  is  a 
singularly  charming  idyl. 

THE  TOWER  OF  LONDON.  A  Historical  Romance  of  the  Times  of  Lady 
Jane  Grey  and  Mary  Tudor.  By  Win.  Harrison  Ainsworth.  Cloth,  izmo.  with 
four  illustrations  by  George  Cruikshank.  Price,  $1.00. 

This  romance  of  the  "Tower  of  London"  depicts  the  Tower  as  palace, 
prison  and  fortress,  with  many  historical  associations.  The  era  ia  thfl 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

The  story  is  divided  into  two  parts,  one  dealing  with  Lady  Jane  Grey, 
and  the  other  with  Mary  Tudor  as  Queen,  introducing  other  notable  char- 
acters of  the  era.  Throughout  the  story  holds  the  interest  of  the  reader 
in  the  midst  of  intrigue  and  conspiracy,  extending  considerably  over  a 
half  a  century. 

IN  DEFIANCE  OF  THE  KING.  A  Romance  of  the  American  Revolution. 
By  Chauncey  C.  Hotchkiss.  Cloth,  I2mo.  with  four  illustrations  by  J.  Watson 
Davis.  Price,  |i.oo. 

Mr.  Hotchkiss  has  etched  in  burning  words  a.  story  of  Yankee  bravery, 
and  true  love  that  thrills  from  beginning  to  end,  with  the  spirit  of  the 
Revolution.  The  heart  beats  quickly,  and  we  feel  ourselves  taking  a 
part  in  the  exciting  scenes  described.  Hie  whole  story  is  so  absorbing 
that  you  will  sit  up  far  into  the  night  to  finish  it.  As  a  love  romance 
it  is  charming. 

GARTHOWEN.  A  story  of  a  Welsh  Homestead.  By  Allen  Raine.  Cloth, 
izmo.  with  four  illustrations  by  J .  Watson  Davis.  Price,  Ji.co. 

"This  is  a  little  idyl  of  humble  life  and  enduring  love,  laid  bare  before 
us,  very  real  and  pure,  which  in  its  telling  shows  us  some  strong  points  of 
"Welsh  character— the  pride,  the  hasty  temper,  the  quick  dying-  out  of  wrath. 
We  call  this  a  well-written  story,  interesting  alike  through  Ha 
romance  and  its  glimpses  into  another  life  than  ours.  A  delightful  and 
clever  picture  of  Welsh  village  life.  The  result  is  excellent."— Detroit  Free 
Press. 

MIFANWY.  The  story  of  a  Welsh  Singer.  By  Allan  Raine.  Cloth, 
:2mo.  with  four  illustrations  by  J.  Watson  Davis.  Price,  $1.00. 

"This  is  a  love  story,  simple,  tender  and  pretty  as  one  would  care  to 
read.  The  action  throughout  is  brisk  and  pleasing;  the  characters,  it  is  ap- 
parent at  once,  are  as  true  to  life  as  though  the  author  had  known  them 
all  personally.  Simple  in  all  its  situations,  the  story  is  worked  up  in  that 
touching  and  quaint  strain  which  never  grows  wearisome,  no  matter  how 
often  the  lights  and  shadows  of  love  are  introduced.  It  rings  true,  and 
does  not  tax  the  imagination."— Boston  Herald. 


For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  sent  postpaid  on  receipt  of  price  by  the 
lishers,  A.  L.  BURT  COMPANY,  52-58  Duaae  St.,  New  York, 


GOOD  FICTION  WORTH  READING 

A  series  of  romances  containing  several  of  the  old  favor- 
ites in  the  field  of  historical  fiction,  replete  with  powerful 
romances  of  love  and  diplomacy  that  excel  in  thrilling  and 
absorbing  interest. 

ROB  OF  THE  BOWL.  A  Story  of  the  Early  Days  of 
Maryland.  By  John  P.  Kennedy.  Cloth,  12mo.  Four  page 
illustrations  by  J.  Watson  Davis.  Price,  $1.00. 

This  story  fs  an  authentic  exposition  of  the  manners  and  customs  dur» 
ing  Lord  Baltimore's  rule.  The  greater  portion  of  the  action  takes  place 
in  St.  Mary's — the  original  capital  of  the  State. 

The  quaint  character  of  Rob,  the  loss  of  whose  legs  was  supplied  by  a 
wooden  bowl  strapped  to  his  thighs,  his  misfortunes  and  mother  wit,  far 
outshine  those  fair  to  look  upon.  Pirates  and  smugglers  did  Rob  consort 
with  for  gain,  and  it  was  to  him  that  Blanche  Werden  owed  her  life  and 
her  happiness,  as  the  author  has  told  us  in  such  an  enchanting  manner. 

As  a  series  of  pictures  of  early  colonial  life  in  Maryland,  "Rob  of  the 
Bowl"  has  no  equal.  The  story  is  full  of  splendid  action,  with  a  charming 
love  story,  and  a  plot  that  never  looseria  the  grip  of  its  interest  to  its  last 
page. 

TICONDEROGA.  A  Story  of  Early  Frontier  Life  in  the 
Mohawk  Valley.  By  G.  P.  R.  James.  Cloth,  12mo.  Four 
page  illustrations  by  J.  Watson  Davis.  Price,  $1.00. 

The  setting  of  the  story  is  decidedly  more  picturesque  than  any  ever 
evolved  by  Cooper.  The  story  is  located  on  the  frontier  of  New  York 
State.  The  principal  characters  in  the  story  include  an  English  gentleman, 
his  beautiful  daughter,  Lord  Howe,  and  certain  Indian  sachems  belonging 
to  the  Five  Nations,  and  the  story  ends  with  the  Battle  of  Ticonderoga. 

The  character  of  Captain  Brooks,  who  voluntarily  decides  to  sacrifice 
his  own  life  in  order  to  save  the  son  of  the  Englishman,  is  not  among  thu 
least  of  the  attractions  of  this  story,  which  holds  the  attention  of  the  readar 
even  to  the  last  page. 

Interwoven  with  the  plot  is  the  Indian  "blood"  law,  which  demands  a 
life  for  a  life,  whether  it  be  that  of  the  murderer  or  one  of  his  race.  A 
more  charming  story  of  mingled  love  and  adventure  has  never  been  written 
than  "Ticonderoga." 

MARY  DERWENT.  A  tale  of  the  Wyoming  Valley  in 
1778.  By  Mrs.  Ann  S.  Stephens.  Coth,  12mo.  Four  illustra- 
tions by  J.  Watson  Davis.  Price,  $1.00. 

The  scene  of  this  fascinating  story  of  early  frontier  life  is  laid  in  the 
Valley  of  Wyoming.  Aside  from  Mary  Derwent,  who  is  of  course  the 
heroine,  the  story  deals  with  Queen  Esther's  son,  Giengwatah,  the  Butlers 
of  notorious  memory,  and  the  adventures  of  the  Colonists  with  the  Indians. 

Though  much  is  made  of  the  Massacre  of  Wyoming,  a  great  portion 
of  the  tale  describes  the  love  making  between  Mary  Derwent's  sister,  Walter 
Butler,  and  one  of  the  defenders  of  Forty  Fort. 

This  historical  novel  stands  out  bright  and  pleasing,  because  of  the 
mystery  and  notoriety  of  several  of  the  actors,  the  tender  love  scenes, 
descriptions  of  the  different  localities,  and  the  struggles  of  the  settlers. 
It  holds  the  attention  of  the  reader  even  to  the  last  page. 

For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  sent  postpaid  on  receipt  of 
price  by  the  publishers,  A.  L.  BURT  COMPANY,  52-58 
Duane  St.,  New  York. 


GOOD  FICTION  WORTH  READING 

A  series  of  romances  containing  several  of  the  old  favor- 
ites in  the  field  of  historical  fiction,  replete  with  powerful 
romances  of  love  and  diplomacy  that  excel  in  thrilling  and 
absorbing  interest. 


THE  LAST  TRAIL.  A  story  of  early  days  in  the  Ohio 
Valley.  By  Zane  Grey.  Cloth,  12mo.  Four  page  illustra- 
tions by  J.  Watson  Davis.  Price,  $1.00. 

"The  Last  Trail"  is  a.  story  of  the  border.  The  scene  is  laid  at  Fort 
Henry,  where  Col.  Ebenezer  Zane  with  his  family  have  built  up  a  village 
despite  the  attacks  of  savages  and  renegades.  The  Colonel's  brother  and 
Wetzel,  known  as  Deathwind  by  the  Indians,  are  the  bordermen  who  devote 
their  lives  to  the  welfare  of  the  white  people.  A  splendid  love  story  runs 
through  the  book. 

That  Helen  Sheppard,  the  heroine,  should  fall  in  love  with  such  a 
brave,  skilful  scout  as  Jonathan  Zane  seems  only  reasonable  after  his  years 
of  association  and  defense  of  the  people  of  the  settlement  from  savages  and 
renegades. 

If  one  has  a  liking  for  stories  of  the  trail,  where  the  white  man  matches 
brains  against  savage  cunning,  for  tales  of  ambush  and  constant  striving  for 
the  mastery,  "The  Last  Trail"  will  be  greatly  to  his  liking. 

THE  KNIGHTS  OF  THE  HORSESHOE.  A  tradition- 
ary tale  of  the  Cocked  Hat  Gentry  in  the  Old  Dominion.  By 
Dr.  Wm.  A.  Caruthers.  Cloth,  12mo.  Four  page  illustra- 
tions by  J.  Watson  Davis.  Price,  $1.00. 

Many  will  hail  with  delight  the  re-publication  of  this  rare  and  justly 
famous  story  of  early  American  colonial  life  and  old-time  Virginian 
hospitality. 

Much  that  is  charmingly  interesting  will  be  found  in  this  tale  that  so 
faithfully  depicts  early  American  colonial  life,  and  also  here  is  found  all 
the  details  of  the  founding  of  the  Tramontane  Order,  around  which  has 
ever  been  such  a  delicious  flavor  of  romance. 

Early  customs,  much  love  making,  plantation  life,  politics,  intrigues,  and 
finally  that  wonderful  march  across  the  mountains  which  resulted  in  the 
discovery  and  conquest  of  the  fair  Valley  of  Virginia.  A  rare  book  filled 
with  a  delicious  flavor  of  romance. 

BY  BERWEN  BANKS.  A  Romance  of  Welsh  Life.  By 
Allen  Raine.  Cloth,  12mo.  Four  page  illustrations  by  J. 
Watson  Davis.  Price  $1.00. 

It  is  a  tender  and  beautiful  romance  of  the  idyllic.  A  charming  picture 
of  life  in  a  Welsh  seaside  village.  It  is  something  of  a  prose-poem,  true, 
tender  and  graceful. 


For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  sent  postpaid  on  receipt  of 
price  by  the  publishers,  A.  L.  BURT  COMPANY,  52-58 
Duane  St.,  New  York. 


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HURT'S  HOME  LIBRARY  is  a  scries  which 
includes  the  standard  works  of  the  world's  best  literature, 
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English,  American  and  Foreign  Fiction,  together  with 
many  important  works  in  the  domains 
of  History,  Biography,  Philosophy, 
Travel,  Poetry  and  the  Essays. 

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fSEE  FOI.WWING  PAGES] 


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Abbe      Constantin.         By      LUDOVIC 

HALEVY. 

Abbott,  BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Adam  Bede.  By  GEORGE  ELIOT. 
Addison's  Essays.  EDITED  BY  JOHN 

RICHARD  GREEN. 
Aeneid    of    Virgil.     TRANSLATED     BY 

JOHN  CONNINGTON. 
Aesop's  Fables. 
Alexander,    the    Great,    Life    of.     BY 

JOHN  WILLIAMS. 
Alfred,  the  Great,  Life  of.     BY  THOMAS 

HUGHES. 

Alharabra      By  WASHINGTON  IRVING. 
Alice  in  Wonderland,  and  Through  the 

Looking-Glass.  BY  LEWIS  CARROLL 
Alice  Lorraine.  BY  R.  D.  BLACKMORE 
All  Sorts  and  Conditions  of  Men.  BY 

WALTER  BESANT. 

Alton  Locke.     BY  CHARLES  KINGSLEY. 
Amiel's     Journal.     TRANSLATED      BY 

MRS.  HUMPHREY  WARD. 
Andersen's  Fairy  Tales. 
Anne  of  Geirstein.     BY  SIR  WALTER 

SCOTT. 

Antiquary.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Arabian  Wights'  Entertainments. 
Ardath.     BY   MARIE   CORELLI. 
Arnold,  Benedict,  Life  of.     BY  GEORGE 

CANNING  HILL. 
Arnold's    Poems.        BY      MATTHEW 

ARNOLD. 

Around  the  World  in  the  Yacht  Sun- 
beam.    BY  MRS.  BRASSEY. 
Arundel     Motto.     BY     MARY     CECIL 

HAY. 
At  the  Back  of  the  North  Wind.     BY 

GEORGE  MACDONALD. 
Attic  Philosopher.     BY    EMILE     Sou- 

VESTRE. 

Auld  Licht  Idylls.  BY  JAMES  M. 
BARRIE. 

Aunt  Diana.     BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 

Autobiography  of  Benjamin  Franklin. 

Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table.  BY 
O.  W.  HOLMES. 

Averil.     BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 

Bacon's  Essays.     BY  FRANCIS  BACON. 

Barbara  Heathcote's  TriaL  BY  ROSA 
N.  CAREY. 

Barnaby  Rudge.  BY  CHARLES  DICK- 
ENS. 

Barrack  Room  Ballads.  BY  RUDYARD 
KIPLING. 

Betrothed.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 

Beulah.     BY  AUGUSTA  J.  EVANS. 

Black  Beauty,     BY  ANNA  SEWAI.L. 

Black  Dwarf.  BY  SIR  WALTER 
SCOTT. 

Black  Rock.     BY  RALPH  CONNOR. 

Black  Tulip.     BY  ALEXANDRE  DUMAS. 

Bleak  House.     BY  CHARLES  DICKENS. 

Blithedale  Romance.  BY  NATHANIEL 
HAWTHORNE. 

Bondman.     BY  HALL  CAINE. 

Book  of  Golden  Deeds.  BY  CHAR- 
LOTTE M.  YONGB. 

Boone,  Daniel,  Life  of.  BY  CECIL  B. 
HARTLEY. 


Bride     of     Lammermoor.     Ev      SIR 

WALTER  SCOTT. 

Bride  of  the  Nile.     BY  GEORGE  EBERS. 
Browning's    Poems.     BY    ELIZABETH 

BARRETT  BROWNING. 
Browning's      Poems.       (SELECTIONS.) 

BY  ROBERT  BROWNING. 
Bryant's  Poems.  (EARLY.)     By  WILL- 

IAM  CULLEN  BRYANT. 
Burgomaster's     Wife.     BY     GEORGB 

EBERS. 

Burn's  Poems.     BY  ROBERT  BURNS. 
By  Order  of  the   King.     BY   VICTOI 

HUGO. 

Byron's  Poems.     BY  LORD  BYRON.     < 
Caesar,    Julius,    Life    of.     BY    JAMES 

ANTHONY  FROUDE. 
Carson,    Kit,    Life    of.     BY   CHARLES 

BURDETT. 

Gary's  Poems.     BY  ALICE  AND  PHOBBB 

GARY. 
Cast  Up  by  the  Sea.     BY  SIR  SAMUEL 

BAKER. 
Charlemagne  (Charles  the  Great),  Life 

of.     BY  THOMAS  HODGKIN.  D.  C.  L. 
Charles  Auchester.     BY  E.  BERGER. 
Character.     BY  SAMUEL  SMILES. 
Charles      O'Malley.        BY      CHARLES 

LEVER. 

Chesterfield's  Letters.     BY  LORD  CHES- 
TERFIELD. 
Chevalier     de     Maison     Rouge.     BY 

ALEXANDRE  DUMAS. 
Chicot   the   Jester.     BY    ALEXANDRB 

DUMAS. 
Children  of  the  Abbey.     BY  REGINA 

MARIA  ROCHE. 
Child's     History      of      England.     By 

CHARLES.  DICKENS. 
Christmas     Stories.        BY      CHARLES 

DICKENS. 
Cloister  and  the  Hearth.     BY  CHARLBC 

READE. 

Coleridge's  Poems.     BY  SAMUEL  TAY- 
LOR COLERIDGE. 
Columbus,   Christopher,   Life  of.     BY 

WASHINGTON  IRVING. 
Companions  of  Jehu.     BY  ALEXANDRB 

DUMAS. 
Complete  Angler.     BY   WALTON   AND 

COTTON. 
Conduct  of  Life.     BY  RALPH  WALDOS 

EMERSON. 
Confessions  of  an  Opium  Eater.     Bw 

THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY. 
Conquest  of  Granada.     BY  WASHING^ 

TON  IRVING. 

Conscript.     By  ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN 
Conspiracy  of  Pontiac.     By  FRANCIS 

PARKMAN,  JR. 

Conspirators.     BY    ALEXANDRE     DU- 
MAS. 

Consuelo.     BY  GEORGE  SAND. 
Cook's  Voyages.     BY  CAPTAIN  JAMB»- 

COOK. 

Corinne.     BY  MADAME  DE  STAEL. 
Countess  de  Charney.     BY  ALEXANDRA 

DUMAS. 
Countess    Gisela.     BY    E.    MARUT*- 


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Countess  of  Rudolstadt  BY  GEORGE 
SAND. 

Count  Robert  of  Paris.  BY  SIR 
WALTER  SCOTT. 

Country  Doctor.  By  HONORS  DE 
BALSAC. 

Courtship  of  Miles  Standish.  BY  H.  W. 
LONGFELLOW. 

Cousin  Maude.     BY  MARY  J.  HOLMES. 

Cranford.     BY  MRS.  GASKELL. 

Crockett,  David,  Life  of.  AN  AUTOBI- 
OGRAPHY. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  Life  of.  BY  EDWIN 
PAXTON  HOOD. 

Crown  of  Wild  Olive.  BY  JOHN 
RUSKIN" 

Crusades.      BY  GEO.  W.  Cox,  M.  A. 

Daniel  Deronda.     BY  GEORGE  EMOT. 

Darkness  and  Daylight.  BY  MARY  J. 
HOLMES. 

Data  of  Ethics.  BY  HERBERT  SPEN- 
CER. 

Daughter  of   an   Empress,   The.     BY 

LOUISA    MUHLBACH. 

David  Copperfield.  BY  CHARLES 
DICKENS. 

Days  of  Bruce.     BY  GRACE  AGUILAR. 

Deemster,  The.     BY  HALL  CAINE. 

Deerslayer,  The.  BY  JAMES  FENI- 
MORE  COOPER. 

Descent  of  Man.  BY  CHARLES  DAR- 
WIN. 

Discourses  of  Epictetus.  TRANSLATED 
BY  GEORGE  LONG. 

Divine  Comedy.  (DANTE.)  TRANS- 
LATED BY  REV.  H.  F.  CAREY. 

Dombey&Son.  BY  CHARLES  DICKENS. 

Donal  Grant.  BY  GEORGE  MACDON- 
ALD. 

Donovan.     BY  EDNA  LYALL. 

Dora  Deane.     BY  MARY  J.  HOLMES. 

Dove  in  the  Eagle's  Nest.  BY  CHAR- 
LOTTE M.  YONGE. 

Dream  Life.     BY  IK  MARVEL. 

Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde.     BY  R.  L. 

STEVENSON. 

Duty.     BY  SAMUEL  SMILES. 
Early  Days  of  Christianity.     BY  F.  W. 

FARRAR. 

East  Lynne.     BY  MRS.  HENRY  WOOD. 
Edith    Lyle's    Secret.     BY    MARY    J. 

HOLMES. 

Education.     BY  HERBERT  SPENCER. 
Egoist.     BY  GEORGE  MEREDITH. 
Egyptian    Princess.     BY    GEORGE 

EBERS. 

Eight  Hundred  Leagues  on  the  Ama- 
zon.    BY  JULES  VERNE. 
Eliot's  Poems.     BY  GEORGE  ELIOT. 
Elizabeth  and  her  German  Garden. 
Elizabeth  (Queen  of  England),  Life  of. 

BY  EDWARD  SPENCER  BEESLY,  M.A. 
Elsie  Venner.     BY  OLIVER  WENDELL 

HOLMES. 
Emerson's  Essays.     (COMPLETE.)     BY 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 
Emerson's  Poems.     BY  RALPH  WALDO 

EMERSON. 
English    Orphans.       BY      MARY      J. 

HOLMES. 


English  Traits.      BY  R.  W.  EMERSON. 
Essays     in     Criticism,     (FIRST     AND 

SECOND     SERIES.)     BY     MATTHEW 

ARNOLD. 

Essays  of  Elia.     BY  CHARLES  LAMB. 
Esther.     BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 
Ethelyn's     Mistake.     BY     MARY     J 

HOLMES. 
Evangeline.     (WITH   NOTES.)     BY   H, 

W.  LONGFELLOW. 
Evelina.     BY  FRANCES  BURNEY. 
Fair  Maid  of  Perth.     BY  SIR  WALTER 

SCOTT.  * 

Fairy  Land  of  Science.     BY  ARABELLA 

B.  BUCKLEY.  j 

Faust     (GOETHE.)     TRANSLATED    BT 

ANNA  SWANWICK. 
Felix  Holt.     BY  GEORGE  ELIOT. 
Fifteen  Decisive  Battles  of  the  World, 

BY  E.  S.  CREASY. 

Fjle  No.  113.     BY  EMILE  GABORIAU. 
Firm  of   Girdlestone.     BY  A.  CONAN 

DOYLE. 

Fjrst Principles.  BYHERBERT SPENCER. 
First  Violin.     BY  JESSIE  FOTHERGILL. 
For  Lilias.     Bv  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 
Fortunes  of  Nigel.     BY  SIR  WALTER 

SCOTT. 
Forty-Five  Guardsmen.     BY  ALEXAN- 

DRE  DUMAS. 

Foul  Play.     BY  CHARLES  READE. 
Fragments     of     Science.     BY     Jo»v 

TYXDALL. 
Frederick,    the    Great,    Life    of.     ,'^Y 

FRANCIS  KUGI.ER. 
Frederick  the  Great  and  His  Court.     UY 

LOUISA  MUHLBACH. 
French  Revolution.     BY  THOMAS  CAR. 

LYLE. 

From   the   Earth   to   the   Moon.     BY 

JULES  VERNE. 
Garibaldi,  General,  Life  of.     BY  Tnf  o- 

DORE   DWIGHT. 

Gil  Bias,  Adventures  of.     BY  A.  R.  f»B 

SAGE. 
Gold     Bug     and     Other     Tales.     BY 

EDGAR  A.  POE. 
Gold  Elsie.     BY  E.  MARLITT. 
Golden    Treasury.     BY    FRANCIS    T. 

PALGRAVE. 
Goldsmith's      Poems.       BY      OLIVEI 

GOLDSMITH. 
Grandfather's  Chair.     BY  NATHANIEL 

HAWTHORNE. 
Grant,  Ulysses  S.,  Life  of.     BY  J.  ? 

HEADLEY. 

Gray's  Poems.     BY  THOMAS  GRAY. 
Great      Expectations.     BY      CHARLES 

DICKENS. 
Greek    Heroes.     Fairy   Tales    for    My 

Children.     BY  CHARLES  KINGSLEY. 
Green  Mountain  Boys,  The.     BY  D.  I*. 

THOMPSON. 
Grimm's   Household   Tales.     BY   THE 

BROTHERS  GRIMM. 
Grimm's     Popular     Tales.     BY     THE 

BROTHERS  GRIMM. 

Gulliver's  Travels.     BY  DEAN  SWIFT, 
Guy    Mannering.     BY    SIB 

SCOTT. 


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Hale,  Nathan,  the  Martyr  Spy.  BY 
CHARLOTTE  MOLYNEUX  HOLLOWAY. 

Handy  Andy.     BY  SAMUEL  LOVER. 

Hans  of  Iceland.     BY  VICTOR  HUGO. 

Hannibal,  the  Carthaginian,  Life  of. 
BY  THOMAS  ARNOLD,  M.  A. 

Hardy  Norseman,  A.    BY  EDNA  LYALL. 

Harold.     BY  BULWER-LYTTON. 

Harry  Lorrequer.    BY  CHARLES  LEVER. 

Heart  of  Midlothian.  BY  SIR  WALTER 
SCOTT. 

3eir  of  Redclyffe.     BY  CHARLETTE  M. 

YONGE. 

(Eemans'  Poems.  BY  MRS.  FELICIA 
HEMANS. 

Henry  Esmond.  BY  WM.  M.  THACK- 
ERAY. 

Henry,  Patrick,  Life  of.     BY  WILLIAM 

WlRT. 

Her  Dearest  Foe.  BY  MRS.  ALEXAN- 
DER. 

Hereward.     BY  CHARLES  KINGSLEY. 
Heriot's  Choice.     BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 
Heroes      and      Hero- Worship.         BY 

THOMAS  CARLYLC. 
Hiawatha.     (WITH  NOTES.)     BY  H.  W. 

LONGFELLOW. 
Hidden  Hand,  The.    (COMPLETE.)   BY 

MRS.  E.  D.  E.   N.  SOUTHWORTH. 
History    of    a    Crime.       BY    VICTOR 

HUGO. 
History  of  Civilization  in  Europe.     BY 

M.  GUIZOT. 
Holmes'  Poems.  (  EARLY)  BY  OLIVER 

WENDELL  HOLMES. 
Holy     Roman     Empire.      BY     JAMES 

BRYCE. 
Homestead  on  the  Hillside.     BY  MARY 

.1.  HOLMES 

Hood's  Poems.     BY  THOMAS  HOOD. 
House     of     the     Seven     Gables.     BY 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 
Hunchback     of     Notre     Dame.     BY 

VICTOR  HUGO. 

Hypatia.     BY   CHARLES   KINGSLEY. 
Hyperion.     BY    HENRY    WADSWORTH 

LONGFELLOW. 

Iceland  Fisherman,     BY  PIERRE  LOTI. 
Idle  Thoughts  of  an  Idle  Fellow.     BY 

JEROMB  K.  JEROME. 
Iliad,     POPE'S  TRANSLATION. 
Inez.     BY  AUGUSTA  J.  EVANS. 
Inflow's  Poems.     BY  JEAN  INGELOW. 
Initials.     BY    THB    BARONESS    TAUT- 

PHOEUS. 

Intellectual     Life.     BY      PHILIP     G. 

HAMERTON. 
In   the    Counsellor's    House.     BY    E. 

MARLITT. 
In     the     Golden     Days.     BY     EDNA 

LYALL. 
In    the    Heart    of    the    Storm.     BY 

MAXWELL  GRAY 

In  the  Schillingscourt.     BY  E.  MAR- 
LITT. 
IshmaeL     (COMPLETE  )     BY   MRS.    E. 

D.  E.  N.  SOUTHWORTH. 
It   Is  Never  Too  Late  to  Mend.     BY 

CHARLES  READE. 


Ivanhoe.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Jane  Eyre.     BY  CHARLOTTE  BRONTB. 
Jefferson,      Thomas,      Life      of.     BY 

SAMUEL  M.  SCHMUCKBR,  LL.D. 
Joan    of    Arc,    Life    of.     BY    JULES 

MlCHELET. 

John  Halifax,  Gentleman.     BY  Miss 

MULOCK. 
Jones,  John  Paul,  Life  of.     BY  JAMBS 

OTIS. 
Joseph     Balsamo.     BY     ALEXAXDRE 

DUMAS. 
Josephine,  Empress  of  Franc*,  Life  of. 

BY  FREDERICK  A.  OBEH. 
Keats'  Poems.     BY  JOHN  KEATS. 
Kenilworth.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOT:», 
Kidnapped.     BY  R.  L.  STEVENSON. 
King  Arthur  and  His  Noble  Knights. 

BY  MARY  MACLEOD. 
Knickerbocker's  History  of  New  York. 

BY  WASHINGTON  IRVING. 
Knight  Errant.     BY  EDNA  LYALL. 
Koran.    TRANSLATED      BY      GEORGB 

SALE. 
Lady  of  the  Lake.     (WITH  NOTES.)     BY 

SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Lady  with  the  Rubies.     Br  E.  MAR- 
LITT. 
Lafayette,  Marquis  de.   Life    of.      BY 

P.  C.  HEADLEY. 
Lalla     Rookh.     (WITH     NOTES.)     BY 

THOMAS  MOORE. 

Lamplighter.     BY    MARIA     S.     CUM- 
MINS. 

Last  Days  of  Pompeii.     BY  BULWER- 
LYTTON. 

Last   of   the    Barons.     BY    BULWER- 
LYTTON. 
Last    of    the    Mohicans.     BY    JAMES 

FENIMORE  COOPER. 
Lay    of    the    Last    Minstrel.     (WITH 

NOTES  )     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Lee,  General  Robert  E.,  Life  of.     BY 

G.  MERCER  ADAM. 
Lena  Rivers.     BY  MARY  J    HOLMES 
Life    of    Christ.     BY    FREDERICK.    W. 

FARRAR. 

Life  of  Jesus.     BY  ERNEST  RENAN. 
Light     of     Asia.     BY     SIR     EDWIN 

ARNOLD 
Light    That    Failed.     BY     RUDYARD 

KIPLING. 
Lincoln,      Abraham,      Life      of.     By 

HENRY  KETCHAM. 
Lincoln's   Speeches.     SELECTED    AND 

EDITED  BY  G.  MERCER    ADAM. 
Literature  and  Dogma.     BY  MATTHEW 

ARNOLD 

Little  Dprrit.  BY  CHARLES  DICKENS. 
Little  Minister.  BY  JAMES  M.  BARRIE. 
Livingstone,  David*  Life  of.  BY 

THOMAS  HUGHES 
Longfellow's  Poems.      (EARLY,)     Br 

HENRY  W    LONGFELLOW. 
Lorna  Doone.     BY  R.  D.  BLACKMORB. 
Louise  de  la  Valliere.     BY  ALEXANDRB 

DUMAS. 
Love  Me  Little,  Love  Me  Looe.     Br 

CHARLES  READS. 


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Lowell's  Poems.     (EARLY.)  BY  JAMES 

RUSSELL  LOWELL. 
Lucile.     BY  OWEN  MEREDITH. 
Macaria.     BY  AUGUSTA  J.  EVANS. 
Macaulay's  Literary  Essays.     BY  T.  B. 

MACAUI.AY. 
Macaulay's  Poems.     BY  THOMAS  BAB- 

INGTON  MACAULAY. 
Madame     Therese.     BY    ERCKMANN- 

CHATRIAN. 

Maggie  Miller.  BY  MARY  J.  HOLMES. 
Magic  Skin.  BY  HONORS  DE  BALZAC. 
Mahomet,  Life  of.  BY  WASHINGTON 

IRVING. 
Makers    of   Florence.     BY  MRS.  OLI- 

PHANT. 

Makers  of  Venice.  BY  MRS.  OLI- 
PHANT. 

Man  and  Wife.     BY  WILKIE  COLLINS. 

Man  in  the  Iron  Mask.  BY  ALEXAN- 
DRE  DUMAS. 

Marble  Faun.  BY  NATHANIEL  HAW- 
THORNE. 

Marguerite  de  la  Valois.     BY  ALEX- 

AN'DRE      DUMAS. 

Marian  Grey.     BY  MARY  J.  HOLMES. 
Marius,  The  Epicurian.     BY  WALTER 

PATER. 
Marmion.     (WITH    NOTES.)     BY    SIR 

WALTER  SCOTT. 
Marquis     of     Lossie.     BY      GEORGE 

MACDONALD. 
Martin     Chuzzlewit       BY      CHARLES 

DICKENS. 
Mary,   Queen  of  Scots,   Life   of.     BY 

P.  C.  HEADLEY. 

Mary  St.  John.  BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 
Master  of  Bailantrae,  The.  BY.  R.  L. 

STEVENSON. 
Masterman  Ready.     BY  CAPTAIN  MAR- 

RYATT. 

Meadow  Brook.  BY  MARY  J.  HOLMES. 
Meditations  of  Marcus  Aurelius. 

TRANSLATED  BY  GEORGE  LONG. 
Memoirs  of  a  Physician.     BY  ALEXAN- 

DRE  DUMAS. 

Merle's  Crusade.     BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 
Micah  Clarke.     BY  A.  CONAN  DOLYE. 
Michael  Strogoff.     BY  JULES  VERNE. 
Middlemarch.     BY  GEORGE   ELIOT. 
Midshipman  Easy.     BY  CAPTAIN  MAR- 

RYATT 

Mildred.     BY  MARY  J.  HOLMES. 
Millbank.     BY  MARY  J.  HOLMES. 
Mill  on  the  Floss.     BY  GEORGE  ELIOT. 
Milton's  Poems.     BY  JOHN  MILTON. 
Mine  Own  People.     BYRUDYARDKIP- 

LING. 

Minister's  Wooing,  The.     BY  HARRIET 

BEECHER  STOWE. 

Monastery.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Moonstone.     BY   WILKIE    COLLINS. 
Moore's  Poems.     BY  THOMAS   MOORE 
Mosses    from    an     Old     Manse.     BY 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 
Murders    in    the    Rue    Morgue.     BY 

EDGAR  ALLEN  POE. 
Mysterious  Island.     BY  JULES  VERNE. 
Napoleon  Bonaparte,  Life  of.     BY  P. 

C  HEADLEY. 


Napoleon  and  His  Marshals.  BY  J. 
T.  HEADLEY. 

Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World. 
BY  HENRY  DRUMMOND. 

Narrative  of  Arthur  Gordon  Pym.  BY 
EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 

Nature,  Addresses  and  Lectures.  BY 
R.  W.  EMERSON. 

Nellie's  Memories.  BY  ROSA  N. 
CAREY. 

Nelson,  Admiral  Horatio,  Life  of.  BY 
ROBERT  SOUTHEY. 

Newcomes.  BY  WILLIAM  M.  THACK- 
ERAY. 

Nicholas  Nickleby.  BY  CHAS.  DICK- 
ENS. 

Ninety-Three.     BY  VICTOR  HUGO. 

Not  Like  Other  Girls.  BY  ROSA  N. 
CAREY. 

Odyssey.     POPE'S  TRANSLATION. 

Old  Curiosity  Shop.  BY  CHARLES 
DICKENS. 

Old  Mam'selle's  Secret.     BY  E.  MAR- 

LITT. 

Old     Mortality.     BY     SIR     WALTER 

SCOTT. 
Old    Myddleton's   Money.     BY    MARY 

CECIL  HAY. 

Oliver  Twist.     BY  CHAS.  DICKENS. 
Only   the    Governess.     BY    ROSA    N. 

CAREY. 
On      the      Heights.     BY      BERTHOLD 

AUERBACH. 

Oregon  Trail.  BY  FRANCIS  PARK- 
MAN. 

Origin  of  Species.  BY  CHARLES 
DARWIN. 

Other  Worlds  than  Ours.  BY  RICH- 
ARD PROCTOR. 

Our  Bessie.     BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 

Our  Mutual  Friend.  BY  CHARLES 
DICKENS. 

Outre-Mer.     BY  H.  W.  LONGFELLOW. 

Owl's  Nest.     BY  E.  MARLITT. 

Page  of  the  Duke  of  Savoy.  BY 
ALEXANDRE  DUMAS. 

Pair  of  Blue  Eyes.  BY  THOMAS 
HARDY. 

Pan  Michael.  BY  HENRYK  SIEN- 
KIEWICZ. 

Past    and   Present     BY   THOS.    CAR- 

LYLE. 

Pathfinder.  BY  JAMES  FENIMORE 
COOPER. 

Paul  and  Virginia.  BY  B.  DE  ST. 
PIERRE. 

Pendennis.  History  of.  BY  WM.  M. 
THACKERAY. 

Penn,  William,  Life  of.  BY  W.  HEP- 
WORTH  DlXON. 

Pere  Goriot.     BY  HONORS  DE  BALZAC. 

Peter,  the  Great,  Life  of.  BY  JOHN 
BARROW. 

Peveril  of  the  Peak,  BY  SIR  WALTER 
SCOTT. 

Phantom  Rickshaw,  The.  BY  RUD- 
YARD  KIPLING. 

Philip  IL  of  Spain,  Life  of.  BY  MAR- 
TIN A.  S.  HUME. 

Picciola.     BY  X.  B.  SAINTINB. 


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Pickwick  Papers.  BY  CHARLES  DICK- 
EN'S. 

Pilgrim's  Progress.    BY  JOHN  BUNYAN 

Pillar  of  Fire.  BY  REV.  J.  H.  INGRA- 
HAM. 

Pilot.     BY  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 

Pioneers.  BY  JAMES  FENIMORE 
COOPER. 

Pirate.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 

Plain  Tales  from  the  Hills.  BY  RUD- 
YARD  KIPLING. 

Plato's  Dialogues.  TRANSLATED  BY  J. 
WRIGHT,  M.  A. 

Pleasures    of    Life.     BY    SIR    JOHN 

LUBBOCK. 

Poe's  Poems.     BY  EDGAR  A.  FOB. 

Pope's  Poems.     BY  ALEXANDER  POPE. 

Prairie.     BY  JAMES  F.  COOPER. 

Pride  and  Prejudice.  BY  JANE  AUS- 
TEN. 

Prince  of  the  House  of  David.  BY 
REV.  J.  H.  INGRAHAM. 

Princess  of  the  Moor.     BY  E.  MARLITT. 

Princess  of  Thule.  BY  WILLIAM 
BLACK. 

Procter's  Poems.  BY  ADELAIDE  PROC- 
TOR. 

Professor  at  the  Breakfast  Table.  BY 
OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 

Professor.     BY    CHARLOTTE    BRONTE. 

Prue  and  L  BY  GEORGE  WILLIAM 
CURTIS. 

Put  Yourself  in  His  Place.  BY  CHAS. 
READE. 

Putnam,  General  Israel,  Life  of  BY 
GEORGE  CANNING  HILL. 

Queen  Hortense.  BY  LOUISA  MUHL- 
BACH. 

Sueenie's  Whim.     BY  ROSA  N.  CAR.EV. 
ueen's    Necklace.     BY    ALEX  ANDRE 

DUMAS. 
Quentin  Durward.     BY  SIR  WALTER 

SCOTT. 
Rasselas,    History    of.     BY    SAMUEL 

JOHNSON. 

Redgauntlet.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Red    Rover.     BY    JAMES    FENIMORE 

COOPER. 
Regent's  Daughter.     BY  ALBXANDRE 

DUMAS. 

Reign  of  Law.     BY  DUKE  OP  ARGYLE. 
Representative      Men.       BY      RALPH 

WALDO  EMERSON. 
Republic   of   Plato.     TRANSLATED   BY 

DAVIES  AND  VAUGHAN. 
Return   of  the   Native.     BY  THOMAS 

HARDY. 

Reveries  of  a  Bachelor.     BY  IK  MAR- 
VEL. 
Reynard  the  Fox.    EDITED  BY  JOSEPH 

JACOBS. 

Rienzi.     BY  BuLWER-LvTTON. 
Richelieu,      Cardinal,     Life     of.     BY 

RICHARD  LODGE. 

Robinson  Crusoe.     BY  DANIEL  DEFOE. 
Rob  Roy.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Romance  of  Natural  History.     BY  P. 

H.  GOSSE. 
Romance  of  Two  Worlds.     BY  MARIE 

CORELLI. 


Romola.     BY  GEORGE  ELIOT. 
Rory  O'More.     BY  SAMUEL  LOVER. 
Rose  Mather.     BY  MARY  J.  HOLMES. 
Rossetti's  Poems.     BY  GABRIEL  DANTB 

ROSSETTI. 

Royal     Edinburgh.     BY     MRS.     OLI- 

PHANT. 

Rutledge.     BY  MIRIAN  COLES  HARRIS. 
Saint  MichaeL     BY  E.  WERNER. 
Samantha    at    Saratoga.     BY    JOSIAH 

ALLER'S   WIFE.     (MARIETTA    Hoi, 

LEY.) 
Sartor   Resartus.     BY   THOMAS    CAR 

LYLE. 

Scarlet  Letter.     BY  NATHANIEL  HAW 

HORNE. 

Schonberg-Cotta    Family.     BY    MRS. 

ANDREW  CHARLES. 
Schopenhauer's  Essays.     TRANSLATED 

BY  T.  B.  SAUNDERS. 
Scottish  Chiefs.     BY  JANB  PORTER. 
Scott's     Poems.     BY     SIR     WALTER 

SCOTT. 
Search  for  Basil  Lyndhurst.  BY 

ROSA  N.  CAREY. 
Second  Wife.     BY  E.  MARLITT. 
Seekers  After  God.     BY  F.  W.  FARRAR. 
Self-Help.     BY  SAMUEL  SMILES. 
Self-Raised.     (COMPLETE.)     BY    MRS, 

E.  D.  E.  N.  SOUTHWORTH. 
Seneca's  Morals. 
Sense     and     Sensibility.     BY     JANB, 

AUSTEN. 
Sentimental  Journey.     BY  LAWRENCE 

STERNE. 

Sesame  and  Lilies.  BY  JOHN  RUSKIN. 
Shakespeare's  Heroines.  BY  ANNA 

JAMESON. 
Shelley's  Poems.     BY  PERCY  BYSSHB 

SHELLEY. 

Shirley.     BY  CHARLOTTE  BRONTE. 
Sign    of    the    Four.     BY    A.  CONAN 

DOYLE. 

Silas  Marner.     BY  GEORGE  ELIOT. 
Silence  of  Dean  Maitland.     BY  MAX* 

WELL  GRAY. 

Sir  Gibbie.  BY  GEORGE  MACDONALD 
Sketch  Book.  BY  WASHINGTON  IRV 

ING. 
Smith,  Captain  John,  Life  of.     BY  W. 

GILMORE  SIMMS. 

Socrates,  Trial  and  Death  of.     TRANS- 
LATED BY  F.  J.  CHURCH.  M.  A. 
Soldiers    Three.     By    RUDYARD    KIF- 

LING. 

Springhaven.  BY  R.  D.  BLACKMORE. 
Spy.  BY  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER. 
Stanley,  Henry  M.,  African  Explorer, 

Lite  of.     BY  A.  MONTEFIORE. 
Story  of  an  African  Farm.     BY  OLIVB 

SCHREINER. 

Story  of  John  G.  Patoo.    TOLD  FOR 

YOUNG     FOLKS.     BY     REV.     JAS. 

PATON. 
St.  Ronan's  Well.  BY  SIR  WALTER 

SCOTT. 
Study  in  Scarlet  BY  A.  CONAN 

DOYLB. 


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Surgeon's  Daughter.     BY  SIR  WALTER 

SCOTT. 

Swinburne's  Poems.     BY  A.  C.  SWIN- 
BURNE. 
Swiss    Family    Robinson.     BY    JEAN 

RUDOLPH  WYSS. 
Taking  the  Bastile.     BY  ALEXANDRE 

DUMAS. 
Tale     of     Two     Cities.     BY     CHAS. 

DICKENS. 
Tales   from   Shakespeare.     BY   CHAS. 

AND  MARY  LAMB. 
Tales  of  a  Traveller.     BY  WASHINGTON 

IRVING. 

Talisman.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 
Tanglewood    Tales.     BY    NATHANIEL 

HAWTHORNE. 
Tempest  and  Sunshine.     BY  MARY  J. 

HOLMES. 
Ten  Rights  in  a  Bar  Room.     BY  T.  S. 

ARTHUR. 

Tennyson's  Poems.     BY  ALFRED  TEN- 
NYSON. 
Ten    Years    Later.     BY    ALEXANDER 

DUMAS. 
Terrible    Temptation.     BY     CHARLES 

READB. 
Thaddeus     of     Warsaw.     BY     JANE 

PORTBR. 

Thelma.     BY  MARIE  CORELLI. 
Thirty  Years'   War.     BY   FREDERICK 

SCHILLER. 
Thousand    Miles    Up    the    Nile.     BY 

AMELIA  B.  EDWARDS. 
Three    Guardsmen.     BY    ALEXANDRE 

DUMAS. 
Three  Men  in  a  Boat.     BY  JEROME  K. 

JEROME. 

Thrift.     BY  SAMUEL  SMILES. 
Throne    of   David.     BY    REV.    J.    H. 

INGRAHAM. 

Toilers  of  the  Sea.     BY  VICTOR  HUGO 
Tom  Brown  at  Oxford.     BY  THOMAS 

HUGHES. 
Tom     Brown's     School     Days.     BY 

THOS.  HUGHES. 
Tom  Burke  of  "Ours."     BY  CHARLES 

LEVBR. 
Tour  of  the  World  in  Eighty  Days. 

BY  JULES  VERNB. 
Treasure  Island.     BY  ROBERT  Louis 

STEVENSON. 
Twenty  Thousand  Leagues  Under  the 

Sea.     BY  JULBS  VERNE 
Twenty  Years  After.     BY  ALEXANDRE 

DUMAS. 
Twice    Told    Tales.     BY    NATHANIEL 

HAWTHORNE. 
Two  Admirals^     BY  JAMES  FENIMORE 

COOPER. 

Two  Dianas.     BY  ALEXANDRE  DUMAS. 
Two  Years  Before  the  Mast     BY  R.  H. 

DANA,  Jr. 

Uarda.     BY  GEORGB  EBERS. 
Uncle  Max.     BY  ROSA  N.  CAREY. 
Uncle    Tom's    Cabin.     BY    HARRIET 

BEECHER  STOWB. 
Under  Two  Flags.     BY  "  OUIDA.  ' 


Utopia.     BY  SIR  THOMAS  MORB. 

Vanity  Fair.     BY  WM.  M.  THACKERAY. 

Vendetta.     BY  MARIE  CORELLI. 

Vespucius,  Amen  c  us.  Life  and  Voyages. 
BY  C.  EDWARDS  LESTER. 

Vicar  of  Wakefield.  BY  OLIVER 
GOLDSMITH. 

Vicomte  de  Bragelonne.  BY  ALEX- 
ANDRE  DUMAS. 

Views  A-Foot.     BY  BAYARD  TAYLOR. 

Villette.     BY  CHARLOTTE  BRONTE. 

Virginians.     BY  WM.  M.  THACKERAY. 

Walden.     BY  HENRY  D.  THOREAU. 

Washington,  George,  Life  of.  BY 
JARED  SPARKS. 

Washington  and  His  Generals.  BY  J. 
T.  HBADLBY. 

Water  Babies.  BY  CHARLES  KINGS- 
LEY. 

Water     Witch.     BY     JAMES      FENI- 

MORB  COOPBR. 

Waverly.     BY  SIR  WALTBR  SCOTT. 

Webster,  Daniel,  Life  of.  BY  SAMUEL 
M.  SCHMUCKER,  LL.D. 

Webster's  Speeches.  (SELECTED.) 
BY  DANIEL  WEBSTER. 

Wee  Wine.     BY  ROSA  N.  CARBY. 

Westward  Hoi  BY  CHARLES  KINGS- 
LEY. 

We  Two.     BY  EDNA  LYALL. 

What's  Mine's  Mine.  BY  GEORGH 
MACDONALD. 

When  a  Man's  Single.  BY  J.  M. 
BARRIE. 

White  Company.  Br  A.  CONAN 
DOYLE. 

Whites  and  the  Blues.  BY  ALEX- 
ANDRE  DUMAS. 

Whittier's  Poems.  (BARLY.)  BY  JOHN 
G.  WHITTIER. 

Wide,  Wide  World.  BY  SUSAN  WAR- 
NER. 

William,  the  Conqueror,  Life  of.  BY 
EDWARD  A.  FREEMAN,  LL  D. 

William,  the  Silent,  Life  of.  BY 
FREDERICK  HARRISON. 

Willy  Reilly.  BY  WILLIAM  CARLE- 
TON. 

Window  in  Thrums.     BY  J.  M.  BARRIB 

Wing  and  Wing.  BY  JAMES  FENI- 
MORE COOPER. 

Wolsey,  Cardinal,  Life  of.  BY  MAN- 
DELL  CREIGHTON. 

Woman  in  White.  BY  WILKIB  COL- 
LINS. 

Won  by  Waiting.     BY  EDNA  LYALL. 

Wonder  Book.  FOR  BOYS  AND 
GIRLS.  BY  NATHANIEL  HAW- 
THORNE. 

Woodstock.     BY  SIR  WALTER  SCOTT. 

Wooed  and  Married.  BY  ROSA  N. 
CAREY. 

Wooing  O't.     BY  MRS.  ALEXANDER. 

Wordsworth's  Poems.  BY  WILLIAM 
WORDSWORTH. 

Wormwood.     BY  MARIE  CORBLLI. 

Wreck  of  the  Grosvenor.  BY  W. 
CLARK  R.USSELL. 


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